Sunday brunch: Broccoli Quiche with Potato Crust

Pie in oven.

I have not had overwhelming success with broccoli quiche. The first time I made the pie I left it on the stove to cool…for about five hours.

The second time I made it I started a small fire on my stove. Completely my fault. Jake thought it was a shame we didn't get the fire on camera. Don't worry, the fire did not endanger the pie. I just ruined a colander due to my usual improvisation. Anyway, I feel lucky to finally have this potato-crust broccoli quiche to eat at brunch this morning. I stole the recipe from here.

Banana Bread Cockaigne

I long for the recipe of an old reporter friend: heavenly banana cake with a thin layer of sliced bananas. I ate it with a decadent banana frosting; I ate it without. I made it in a tiny kitchen in my old 420-square foot apartment in Dogtown. I took it to parties. Now the recipe is nowhere to be found, perhaps because I have moved three times since she handed it to me. So Joy of Cooking will have to do.

Tonight we are visiting friends with the cutest baby boy, and the husband is a real sweet-tooth, the kind that makes his own cookies because they’re so much better than store-bought. Takes one to know one. So despite the aversion to bananas some people have – you know who you are – I’m bringing this Banana Bread Cockaigne:

Preheat the oven at 350 and grease a loaf pan. Then whisk 1 ½ c all-purpose flour (I used 1 1/3 of wheat flour instead), 1 ½ t baking powder, and ½ t salt, beat in 2/3 c sugar (or Splenda), 1/3 c vegetable oil or butter, ¾ t grated lemon zest. Then beat in 1 or 2 large eggs, 1 ¼ c mashed ripe bananas, and ¼ c chopped dried apricots. Bake for an hour. Mmmm.

p.s. I was going to kvetch about my lack of motivation on the dissertation so far this summer, but then I looked up “Cockaigne” – the word basically means “land of plenty.” Hmm. Maybe so.

Cutest munchkin eating banana bread:

One of My Favorite Things to Eat. Ever.

Combine Greek yogurt, 1 T honey, 1 T wheat germ, and a few raspberries and blueberries.

A Forest of Broccoli - inspired by Mollie Katzen

Make a box of rice and lentils (I prefer Near East Rice Pilaf). Add cooked (or raw -- for more crunch) broccoli. Voila!

Blueberry Muffins

From Joy of Cooking (p. 635):

First mix your dry and wet ingredients in separate bowls. Then add 1 1/2 c of fresh blueberries.

2 c flour
1 T baking powder
1/2 t salt
1/4 t nutmeg (I used cinnamon)

1/3 c brown sugar (I doubled this, strangely -- still good, however)
2 eggs
1 c milk
1/4 c butter
1 t vanilla

Put in 400 for 17 minutes! Pretty pretty.

Sesame Seed and Cheddar Cheese Flatbread

I’ve noticed that a flatbread will usually carry my husband and I through a meal and a weekend, munching on the bread with hummus for a snack, warming it up with a salad for lunch. Jake usually likes to eat something at the exact moment we head for bed – it often makes me laugh. I guess I don’t understand his m.o. “I’m sleepy. What’s in the fridge?”

Anyway, I use the same recipe as I mentioned earlier this month – Let 1 c of heated water, 2 ½ t yeast, a dash of sugar sit by itself for a bit until it bubbles, then add 1 T of olive oil. In another bowl stir 3 scant c of all-purpose flour, ½ c wheat flour and 1 t of salt. Mix the wets and drys (perhaps adding another 1/3 c of water if you need it) and then put the dough in a plastic bag coated lightly with olive oil for 30 minutes. Seal the bag so that the dough rises while you do other things.

Some other things you could do during this time:

- Line a baking sheet with foil and coat the foil lightly with oil

- Make yourself an open-face egg salad sandwich for lunch

- Browse etsy online

- Decide what to wear for the weekend

- Read some Joan Didion until you begin to feel depressed

- Respond to some emails

- Browse upcoming cooking classes in your town – I peruse Kitchen Conservatory (I’m going to try the make your own pasta class in June!)

THEN, check on your dough. It should be much bigger now. Try not to touch it too much, but do roll it out on the lightly-oiled pan. I still do not have a rolling pin and have taken to using a red wine vinegar bottle instead.

Now, as I mentioned before, use your thumb to dab in olive oil and the dough repeatedly. Then add whatever you want to season your bread. Today I choose cheddar and parmesan cheeses (not too much) and sesame seeds, but you might also consider rosemary or other herbs, minced garlic, and other cheeses (lightly – remember it’s bread not pizza). Bake at 425 for 12-15 minutes. Sooo good.

***In other news, my big experiment in the home improvement arena may have to be on hiatus for a bit. I struck concrete, not always good in the land of DIY repair and paint jobs!

Open-Face Egg Salad Sandwich

Another late lunch, yum...

My egg salad is perhaps a bit different. I use what I have. I don't have mayonnaise. So here's what I use:

3 hard boiled eggs (I only use one or two of the yolks, however)
2 T relish
1 stalk of celery
1 1/2 T veggie cream cheese
salt and pepper to taste

Stir and serve on a slice of wheat toast.















And check out the GORGEOUS flower a friend of mine brought by over a week ago. Still lovely! Neither one of us knows what it is, however.

An afternoon snack: hummus!

1. Mash a can of chickpeas with a fork.
2. Add olive oil (a few T, more or less).
3. Add lemon juice (Measure as much as you can stand. I can stand a lot.).
4. Add a dash of salt (and a couple cloves of minced garlic, if you have/like garlic).

Use with pita, crackers, carrots. Or with a spoon!

***Update: A dash of curry powder really spiced up this dish.

No Cooking Tonight

But instead...a little home improvement (with hope)! Will update you how it turns out. Especially if it turns out well:)

Joy of Curry

As promised I recently dug out Joy of Cooking, which hasn’t had much use except for an annual red velvet cake. The book’s weight intimidates. So tonight I opened it again, and I plan to leave it on the counter for a while. We'll see what becomes of this.

Tonight we ate a chickpea curry. Here’s what to do: heat 2 t of cumin seeds with ¼ c olive oil in a large pan, adding 2 cloves of garlic and 1 t of ginger. Add 2 c of pealed and cubed sweet potato, 2/3 c of cooked chickpeas, 1 c of green beans, and 2 c cauliflower, along with 1 t of salt, black pepper to taste, and 1 c of water (unless you have vegetable stock on hand). Let it cook on medium for 10 minutes, or until the vegetables are tender. Then stir a cup of plain yogurt with 2 T of all-purpose flour, adding it to the vegetables and letting it cook on medium for a while longer – never bringing to a boil.

The curry was pretty thick at this point, so I diverted from Joy of Cooking…and…added ½ c of orange juice! And a half of an onion I diced and sautéed in oil. I’ve done it before with a Mollie Katzen curry recipe, so I thought it would be okay. It was.

Then top with peanuts and serve with basmati rice.

The verdict: I missed carrots and broccoli in my dinner tonight. My husband loved this dish, however, or claimed he did. He is hardly the hearty goat that eats everything.

Never Met a Potato I Didn't Like -- Part II

My husband just suggested that I refer to him as Mr. Potato in this blog, similar to the way in which Carrie Bradshaw refers to John as "Big." Uh, no.

So here is the deal for today, an overcast and breezy Saturday.

Preheat the oven to 450.

Cut up two Yukon gold potatoes in thin slices and half a yellow onion and mix them up in a bowl. Add olive oil and seasonings such as salt, pepper, basil and rosemary, or whatever you prefer. Line a baking sheet with silver foil and use a little olive oil, Pam or butter spray so the potatoes won't stick. Then put your potato and onion mixture on the baking sheet and pop in the oven for 20-25 minutes. Serve with an egg-white and feta omelet and a few asparagus stalks. Mmm, perfect after working out all morning.

p.s. My fridge has never been so crowded since I started this blog!

An Animal Makes His Presence Known

Slice the ends off your green beans and asparagus and halve your carrots (or mini-carrots).

Warning: halving carrots can lead to cutting your thumb.

Drizzle with olive oil and kosher salt.

Tuck in the oven for 10 minutes at 450.

Savor.

Simplicity: A Late Lunch

So easy: 2 eggs (or egg whites, it's entirely up to you), salt, pepper and a dash of shredded cheese. Whisk it together, use a great omelet pan, flip and adorn with sliced tomato.

I'm now eating this omelet while I peruse summer job opportunities on craigslist. Would I like to sell wigs? DJ someone's 19th birthday party? Model socks for a European magazine? I have a couple tutoring gigs lined up (oh yeah, and a dissertation to begin), but I always get this way the minute the semester ends. It is, well, utterly silly.

A Tale of Two Pears

Okay, so we make mistakes sometimes, and this afternoon as I listened to a storm and finished grading research papers, I poached pears and nectarines. Can you guess which fruit worked beautifully and which completely gave up, drowning in wine and sugar?

So here is what I recommend:

Place four pealed pears in a pot with a bottle of red wine (I finally made use of a bottle I got at my bachelorette party: “Mad Housewife Wine”), 1 c of sugar, and 1 t of cinnamon. Boil the wine and then let the mixture simmer for two hours. Then scoop the very pink pears out and halve them if you like. Now, reduce the wine: allow it to boil down for 8-10 minutes so it becomes a much thicker wine sauce. Pour the wine sauce over the pears and add some walnuts. Mmm.

A Hershey's Memory

In college, I once watched my sprightly roommate make a walnut-crust chocolate pie from scratch. She had a Hershey’s cookbook and every few months (or weeks or days, depending on our moods which were often synchronized to an Indigo Girls song) we’d try something out. She baked and I watched. Eventually I caught the baking bug and made the most exquisite cookies with pineapple pieces and macadamia nuts. Best cookie of my life.

This friend recently reminded me of all the veggie burgers flavored with lighter fluid we consumed in the fall of 1999. One autumn afternoon we decided to grill peppers and veggie patties and our neighbors joined us. We continued this for eight (crazy) nights.

We often ate strange things together: Egg white and spinach omelets in a daunting shade of green, homemade soup from whatever we had in the house: water and noodles, rice, canned corn, any odd vegetable lying around, lots of salt and pepper. It was horrible.

I used to borrow my roommate’s hot pink lipstick and wear her knit tank top. I just wish I had lifted that Hershey’s cookbook when I had the chance:) I haven’t seen anything like it since. Instead I will Google Hershey’s brownies and wind up baking something like this:

½ c margarine
1 c sugar
1 t vanilla
2 eggs
½ c flour
½ Hershey’s cocoa
¼ t baking powder
¼ t salt
½ cup chopped nuts (I used almonds)
frosting (I use the recipe on the back of the Hershey’s cocoa)



You know the drill: mix the wets and dry items separately and then slowly add the flour mixture into the wet mixture. Add nuts and pour into a slightly greased pan. Bake for 350 for 25 minutes. Cool then frost. Tell your cats that brownies are not for gatos.

Never Met a Potato I Didn't Like

I remember one winter in Maryland when I decided I would eat nothing but vegetables. I was 22 and no doubt in a calorie-counting phase. I dropped this breaking news on a photographer I worked with and he laughed for a bit. Ken, a gardener, shared with me the knowledge that I would get very little nutrients from vegetables sold at Giant all winter. I changed my mind (I probably went and ate ice cream).

I really could eat a salad every day, however. Tonight I mixed arugula, celery, cucumbers, carrots, a tomato, broccoli, cauliflower, a handful of walnuts, yellow raisins and sunflower seeds and two hard-boiled eggs with some of my favorite dressing: olive oil, red wine vinegar, honey, lemon juice and mustard (just eyeball these things. Despite what some cooks say, you really can’t go wrong).

I started to boil a large potato to put it in the salad but then thought better of it and decided to make a vegetarian shepherd’s pie. So when the potato had boiled, I let it cool and mashed it with a dollop of margarine and a splash of soy milk. Perhaps some wouldn't like the flavor of vanilla soy milk mashed potatoes. But I never met a potato I didn't like.

I then sprinkled a 8x8 pan with a mixture of the following: 2/3 a can of kidney beans, about a pound of Morningstar veggie crumbles I browned on the stove with two cloves of garlic, a carrot, along with the leftover cauliflower and broccoli. I added a thin layer of feta cheese before spreading the mashed potato on top. I then baked it for 25 minutes at 400. Yum yum.

Tomorrow, I'm going to dig out Joy of Cooking.

Sunflower Seed Butter Sandwich: It's What's for Lunch

Wheat Germ, Banana, Sunflower Seed Butter and Honey Sandwich. It's awesome. Really.

Quinoa and Tofu with Trader Joe's Thai Yellow Curry

When I was about thirteen and my brother was eight, we had a cooking show in our house called “Cooks ‘R Us.” We had no regular airtime schedule, but it was the kind of half-hour special that cropped up when my parents left us at home alone. Our imaginary television crew sat by the sink and the camera was projected out from our kitchen wastebasket. We also had a song that opened the show. It is not sacred, yet I cannot bring myself to share it. I recently asked my brother if he remembered the song. His response: “A few things you always remember. Like your name. And that song.”

I can’t recall much of what we made, other than a big mess. I remember an “apple crisp” which involved cut up apples and dried oatmeal packages, and “cinnamon snails” which entailed rolled up buttered bread and sugar. Gosh, Bryan was the sweetest kid. I mean, he still is (but maybe you don’t call 24-year-old guys sweet anymore?). He ate whatever mess I made.

A good memory. No real connection in space and time to today, other than I am still making a big mess in the kitchen and once again recording it for an audience, real or imagined. Here is the mess I made for tonight (it almost beats cinnamon snails).

I boiled 2 c of water with 1 c quinoa, and then let it simmer for 15 minutes, adding a handful of golden raisins and a chopped carrot. Then I took a bottle of Trader Joe’s yellow curry (I know, I know, is it really cooking if Trader Joes does it for you?), added baked tofu, broccoli, cauliflower, celery, and the quinoa mixture. Cook for 10 minutes and eat!

Mmmm protein.

Meeting Rush Limbaugh in the Check Out Line

My conversation with a Trader Joe's cashier this afternoon:

TJ dude: Hey, it's a beautiful day. What are you doing today?

Me: Well, this. And work. That's about it.

TJ: What's work? What do you do?

Me: I'm a grad student.

TJ: What do you study?

Me: American Studies. And Women's Studies.

TJ: Oh no, you're not a feminist are you?

Me: Oh, that dirty word? (I can be a jerk.)

TJ: Yeah. You aren't a feminazi, are you?

Me: I really don't like that word.

TJ: What? It just means that you are hard core.

Me: That's not a great word.

TJ: Well, I didn't make it up.

Me: I know. Rush Limbaugh did.

TJ: Oh, I listen to him sometimes.

Huh. Why did this happen? And why do people think they can throw the word feminazi around in the check out line? Or anywhere?

In other news, I bought ingredients to make quinoa with tofu tomorrow. Goal for tomorrow: less bitching, more cooking:)

A Cookie for Rookies

As I baked cookies tonight, I remembered Cookie Monster and his switch to eating cookies only "sometimes” now.

Right. I know we have an obesity epidemic, more people have diabetes than ever before, and kids eat too much sugar.

But to hell with this. He is the Cookie Monster. Not the Legumes Monster, the Calcium Supplement Monster, the Flaxseed Monster.

Maybe what Sesame Street needs is more fusion cookies: snacks with figs, nuts, seeds, fruits, (vegetables even?).

A friend asked me today why I named this blog No Animals Lots of Carbs instead of No Animals Lots of Veggies. Two reasons:

a) I don’t really eat lots of veggies. I eat lots of carbs.

b) Carbs get such a bad rap. Bread is not the enemy! Neither are cookies.

So tonight, in an attempt to use dried apricots before they harden and hurt my teeth – the teeth of a much older and wiser woman – I baked apricot and walnut cookies.

The recipe was quite easy. Mix 1 and ½ c of flour with ½ t cinnamon, ¼ t salt, ¾ c butter, a bit over ¼ sugar, ½ t of orange zest (I used a tangerine), ½ c walnuts, 1/3 c sliced dried apricots.

Then divide the dough in two, shaping it into one or two logs, wrapping it in plastic and then the hard part: letting the dough chill (for at least 2 hours!). I always want to bake and/or cook something in one visit to the kitchen, not 2 or 3.

Finally, after you wait around for the dough to chill out (I went to a pilates class and then graded a few final exams, which surprised me in that they were beautifully written – two brought me near to tears. Such a crybaby), you pop the dough out of the fridge or freezer, brush it with one beaten egg and roll it in lovely raw sugar before baking at 350 for 15 minutes. Turn them over halfway through baking time!

Pretty pretty.

Making Your Own Granola

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I must first confess that last night's vegetable soup was heavy for me, even though I substituted the cream with soymilk. It was the kind of meal that left me glued to the couch for most of the night, where I managed to watch (especially since they kept replaying it) poor Rick Ankiel's unfortunate run into the outfield wall at Busch stadium, then biologist/fisherman Jeremy Wade in "River Monsters." If you haven't heard of it, it's quite good TV (much better than "The Hills"). Love the way Wade peers his head into a snake's home and catches a 150-pound fishy in the Amazon only to pet him and release him back in the river. Or her. Don't want to make any gender assumptions here.

Perhaps my television coma was due to an end-of-the-semester funk. Or maybe I'm not a soup-for-dinner kind of person. Then again, what the hell is a person supposed to do after dinner? Lift weights? Pound beers? Read War and Peace?

Moving on.

I am continuing in my unabashed compliments to Kitchen Conservatory, whose recipe I tweaked for tonight's granola. Am I going to eat granola for dinner? Maybe. For breakfast, certainly. Lunch, if I'm home. And snacks, you bet. Love the granola: with yogurt, ice cream, soymilk, even plain.

So I started out with a few ingredients, brought to you from my local Schnucks:
1/3 c coconut (the recipe called for unsweetened but my Schnucks has never heard of such as thing)
1/3 c almonds
1/3 c walnuts
3 c of oats (Quaker works for me)
1/4 c sesame seeds (the recipe also called for pumpkin seeds but these were nowhere to be seen)
1/4 butter/margarine
6 T of honey and/or molasses (I used both)
and about a cup of assorted dried fruits (I found mango, yellow raisin and apricots but I suggest cranberries and/or blueberries for a less monochromatic look).

Stir and bake for 15 in 325.

Yum! Enjoy! & expect cookie recipes coming soon:)

Day 1: Starting a Blog: No Animals. Lots of Carbs.

So I have been inspired.

Perhaps due to reading Julie & Julia again.

Perhaps because I took a cooking class at Kitchen Conservatory last week (Margi was a g-ddess).

Perhaps on account of years spent faithfully reading several cooking blogs and finally deciding to join the masses.

Or, more realistically though also more grim, perhaps I am writing today largely because I have eaten the same pad thai for the past three years of dinners. Of course it’s great – why else would my husband and I (almost) never tire of silky noodles, crunchy peanuts and fried tofu? It’s easy enough to get when you live one block east of one of the best streets to live on in America. Honestly.

I know this street, the Delmar Loop, like I used to know the towns I covered in my other life as a beat reporter. I know by sight and smile the long-haired folks who play guitar in the spring at the Starbucks that used to be a Dairy Queen (yes even this street has a Starbucks), the skinny bandana-wearing dude who does cartwheels in the street when it rains and scares all the college freshmen, and the guy with a Santa beard who considers himself the town watcher (he actually called police once when he spotted a robber).

If I never moved away the Loop, I might be okay with that.

Yet it has become too easy to never fill my fridge but instead rely on the bounty of Thai restaurants (four, to be exact) along this street to fill me up.

So maybe I’m starting this blog as a protest to monotony and routinization, and also to thinking I’m healthy just because I don’t eat animals. So I think I’m going to let you know, dear faithful reader, which may just be the aforementioned husband, what we’re eating from now on. Please: hold me accountable.

Day 1.

I took the recipe from Kitchen Conservatory and made flat bread (3 c white flour, ½ c wheat flour, a pinch of salt, 1 cup hot water, 1 T olive oil mixed up and left alone in a plastic bag to rise for a bit, then rolled it out with a bottle of vinegar since I don’t own a rolling pin, put my thumbprint all over it like Margi suggested, and sprinkled the dough with parmesan, salt, rosemary and garlic. Then I placed it in the oven at 425 for 15-18 minutes – my oven is slow).

Then I made vegetable soup as an homage to Julie Powell, whose prose was so depressing to one of my friends that she quit after the first ten pages. Not I (I really only quit reading due to vapid prose…the darker, possibly the better).

Anyway, Julie’s first recipe was Julia Child’s first recipe, a potage parmentier, or potato soup. Well, it’s May now and I thought this a little hearty so I lightened it up: (placed green beans, a diced white onion, two garlic cloves, a couple sliced carrots and two ugly potatoes cut up in a pot with lots of water – I forgot to measure – with salt, pepper and bay leaves for about an hour, ran them through my miniCuisinart which was a bit of an annoying task, and then added some soymilk and a pat of butter. Strange but true. And tasty).

Voila. My first blog.