Happy Limoncello and Strawberry Syrup!

It's been a week and a half since we parked our lemon rinds in the cool, dark pantry to marinate in a liter of vodka. The rinds did, in fact, lose their color and imbue the clear liquor with a nice yellow tinge (that this photo doesn't quite capture). I did a blind taste test of it against some Toschi lemoncello that we've probably had for too long. Our fresh limoncello was yellower, clearer, and had a lovely floral bouquet, while the Toschi smelled a little turpentine-y.

Ours is so lovely and fragrant and sweet. We ended up with about a liter of infused vodka that we added simple syrup (2 c. water + 3 c. sugar) to. Then strained and filtered into whatever glass receptacle I could find.

And then Zips had the genius idea of making some simple strawberry syrup, following the recipe by Vegan Dad. It was really easy (although we halfed his recipe. Had some leftover strawberries that I had cleaned and parked in the freezer about two weeks ago).

Since I'm a lightweight, Zips knew this would be ideal for sweetening the limoncello for me even more. We've dubbed this Zips Hard Strawberry Limonade!

It's just limoncello + strawberry syrup to taste over ice. MMmmmmm... happy happy strawberry limoncello!

C is for Cookie...and Coconut and Carrot and Cinnamon...and Crumbles!

Since all of my adult life has consisted of being a graduate student and teaching, I associate summertime with being on a TIGHT budget. Since I have foodie ambitions, I'm learning to combine having no income with being creative in the kitchen. Since a staple for us is a vegetarian version of ground beef (for tacos, chili, spaghetti, lasagna, etc.) I've worked out a recipe that replaces what we usually buy (Morningstar Crumbles) that uses TVP. TVP is just soy-based textured vegetable protein. It's the major ingredient in a lot of veggie burgers and veggie sausages, and can be found (dehydrated) in the bulk sections of groceries and health food stores. (Not much to look at, I know. Just wait.)

"Ground Beef" Style Crumbles:

2 c. TVP

2-3 cloves minced garlic

2 c. boiling water

2 Tb. Kitchen Bouquet

3-4 Tb. soy sauce

garlic powder

onion powder

salt

black pepper

cayenne pepper

Measure out TVP and put it in a large mixing bowl with the minced garlic. When you water comes to a boil, turn off the heat and add Kitchen Bouquet (this makes it a nice brown color without adding too much sodium), soy sauce, and spices. Combine thoroughly and then pour it into your tvp bowl (if you don't mix these together, the Kitchen Bouquet will turn some of the tvp--whatever it hits first-- a very dark brown and leave the rest of it rather blonde). Be sure all of the liquid is combined with the tvp and leave it to absorb the liquid (about 15-20 min).
Once the liquid has been absorbed, the tvp should be evenly brown. Now heat a large frying pan with a little vegetable oil. When hot, add the tvp mixture and heat it. Adjust the seasonings. For me, the onion powder (or granulated onion) is what evokes a kind of beefy flavor. Oh, and I didn't list it, but I use Fiesta brand fajita seasoning in everything. Depending on what you intend to use it in, you may also want to add oregano and other italian seasonings, or cumin and chili powder. Once the tvp has been heated through and browned even more, turn off the heat and let it cool. I did a double batch (4 c. tvp, 4 c. water) and made about the equivalent of three or four 12 oz. packages of crumbles from the store. HERE'S THE MOST IMPORTANT STEP: Once you've got your crumbles tasting the way you want them, let them cool, put them in a freezer bag, and FREEZE IT! It affects the texture once you're using it in a recipe. You can use it "raw" no problem, but if you freeze it, and then cook with it straight from the freezer, it seems more toothsome.

And for a new treat we have a new cookie recipe! These are AMAZING. Like carrot cake. Only better. With a great lemon glaze icing. It's adapted from Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar, which, like its sibling, Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World has the most amazing, creative, delicious treats. (including tiramisu cupcakes, which are the single best cupcake I've ever had in my life. Vegan or not).

But back to the cookies... These are the second recipe in the book. Second only to chocolate chip cookies (which I'll probably be trying out tonight). They deserve this position. They are soon to be classics in this house.

Carrot Raisin Cookies or as we call them Get Your Own

(Preheat to 350)

1/3 c. unflavored soy milk (or any other non-dairy)

1 Tb. ground flax seeds. (I didn't have this, so used 1 1/2 tsp. Ener-G egg replacer mixed well with 2 Tb. water)

1/2 c. canola. oil

1/3 c. dark brown sugar

1 c. sugar

1/2 tsp. orange zest

1 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

mix all these together. In another bowl, sift together

1 3/4 c. all purpose flour

1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon

1 tsp. ground ginger

1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg

1/2 tsp. salt

mix these dry ingredients into the wet mixture. Then measure out:

1 c. finely shredded carrots (I used about 2 medium carrots)

1 c. raisins

1/2 c. shredded coconut

1/2 c. chopped walnuts

mix the chunky bits into the cookie batter and spoon out onto a baking sheet. Bake for about 15 minutes (I did 18 minutes). Let them cool on a wire rack. The lemon glaze that I overdid it on (to GREAT effect) is made up of 1 1/2 c. powdered sugar, zest of 1 lemon, and juice of 2 small lemons). I drizzled mine on WAY too early when the cookies were still hot (couldn't wait). But then I drizzled more when they were cooler (too much of a good thing is even better).

This makes two dozen cookies. I made them at about 10:00 last night. They were GONE by about noon today. You do the math.

Homemade Tortillas and Decadent Desserts

I've been a little ambitious lately. Especially since I've been kicking around a couple of kitchen gadgets like the pasta machine that I'm finally putting to use. Another gadget is a little tortilla press that's put ideas of making my own tortillas into my head. I found a recipe for flour tortillas that had ingredients that I already own, and I saw something recently with Bobby Flay or Rick Bayless using one of those presses, so I was inspired! Now this isn't something I looked in to extensively (for instance, I didn't even look at that link to see that flour tortillas are typically made with a rolling pin!). The recipe itself is a basic dough:

Flour Tortillas

3 c. flour

2 ts. baking powder

1 ts. salt

cut 4-6 Tb. vegetable shortening (I used about 5 Tb.)

1 1/4 c. warm water

The instructions I jotted down said to combine the dry ingredients, mix in the shortening until it's like a meal, and then to dump the water in all at once and mix it into a dough quickly. Then to knead the dough until it's no longer sticky, cover it, and let it rest for 10 minutes.

Then pinch off 1" balls of dough and roll it in your hands into fat disks. Let the dough disks rest another 10 minutes, then with a wooden pin, roll them out into tortillas on a floured surface until they're pretty thin (the thinner and more circular, the better. But don't fret. It all tastes the same!). While you're rolling these out, heat a dry pan or skillet and cook your tortilla about 30 seconds on each side. You'll see the tortilla starting to puff up and blister. This is a good thing.

When you flip it over, you'll see it looks like a charmingly rustic version of what you get in a store!

Of course, I'm leaving out how sticky my dough was. And how, like the gringa I am, I tried to press out my tortillas with the tortilladora. I mean I've had it for years without ever using it! I even used plastic so the dough wouldn't stick to the press! Then Zips came into the kitchen, told me to lighten up, and grabbed a dough ball and a rolling pin and said I wanna try.

As you can see, the little round ones are a bit too thick to pass as tortillas (as one of my dear friends cautioned me, "don't make them too thick and end up with fry bread!")-- but brushed with a little butter and drizzled with honey or cinnamon sugar, they're JUST FINE!

The tortillas were destined for greater things. I've never made fajitas, but I have to say this worked out great! I just sauteed some green and red peppers with onion, and then added some "beef-less strips" (Trader Joe's has good ones, Morningstar has some too) with just some fajita seasoning and cumin. Everyone loved it and we'll be adding it to the menu more often. I didn't even want to add the guacamole, sour cream, or cheese. It was that good.

And the latest on the decadent dessert front is that tonight I decided to make Bananas Foster. If your household is anything like mine, there comes a time when your fruit bowl only has one thing left: bananas. Sure they were light greenish yellow when you bought them. They had a nice bite in your cereal, but yesterday or the day before, they reached that point when no one is going to want to eat them. They're not black yet. But the only one in the house going for them is that damn fly you can't get rid of. Just a one-way train to banana bread. So since I had 3 that were speckled with brown and soft to the touch, I decided to look for a recipe to use them in. This one is a blend of 3 recipes and the fancy restaurant around here that does a whole floor show (table-side preparation with flambe) and charges you per person when you order. Even though bananas cost less than sixty cents a pound. Oh, and you don't have to light the sauce on fire with this. Your eyebrows are safe.

Bananas Foster

2 Tb. butter (I use Earth Balance margarine)

3 Tb. brown sugar

healthy dash of cinnamon-- you can always add more

2 Tb. rum

1-2 Tb. fresh squeezed orange juice (I had half an orange and gave it a squeeze)

(When I make it again, I think I'll do that with a lemon too)

3 bananas, sliced (not too thin)

Melt the butter and stir in the brown sugar, cinnamon, rum, orange juice. Let these mingle and begin to bubble. Once it looks nice and saucy, add the bananas. Cook until bananas are heated through. Serve with vanilla ice cream.

Pass out from endorphins and sugar high. Enjoy!

for a very special reader...

Adventures in Mozzarella-Making

I have been holding on to a June/July 2008 copy of Mother Earth News magazine for, well, two years now because of a single page. It has directions for 30-minute mozzarella cheese. As you probably know, I am a HUGE fan of fresh mozzarella, and when I saw that this was even remotely do-able, I decided to finally tear it out, recycle the rest of it, and give it a whack.

It turns out to be really easy, after finding a couple of ingredients that were not hard to find at all, even in this po-dunk town, and finding a couple of websites for moral support and to supplement instructions and photos of the process, and how to approximate since I didn't have a thermometer that could measure as low as 55 through 175. Ricki the "Cheese Queen" has wonderful step-by-step photos, and a kind of shortcut using a microwave that I appreciated. And I found another link that had some helpful steps and photos.

30-minute Mozzarella

1 gallon milk (Mine's from Albuquerque, the closest to local milk, that I bought at the local hippie co-op. I also used whole milk.)

1 1/2 tsp. powdered citric acid dissolved in 1/4 c. cool water (this can be bought at a grocery store in the baking/canning supplies)

1/4 tsp. liquid vegetable rennet diluted in 1/4 c. cool water (I found this at the local co-op after asking. It was in the dairy case in a small box. I found animal rennet tablets at a different market, but had to keep looking: "complex of enzymes extracted from the stomachs of cows, often veal calves" *shudder*)

Begin heating the milk and when it's 55 degrees, mix in the citric acid solution and stir it thoroughly.

Continue heating it until it's 88-90 degrees. It will begin to curdle. If you don't have a thermometer, you can approximate this (in a super-hygenic way) by sticking your clean finger into the warm milk. If it's starting to thicken, you're good. Once it's 88-90, add the rennet solution and gently stir for 30 seconds. You'll see it's starting to curdle. This is good.

Continue heating until it's 100-105 degrees. Again, if you can't measure the temp scientifically, you'll see the curds begin to pull away from the walls of your pot:

The Cheese Queen has you note the clarity of the liquid, which is whey, and the color, which has a kind of greenish yellow tint (yum!). I guess if it's still white or milky, you need to keep heating. Once it reaches this temp/ stage, you can turn the heat off. At this point, I scooped out all the solids (curds!) and put them in a sieve over a bowl to let the whey continue draining out:
Now the instructions in Mother Earth News got really complicated at this point (it involved heating the whey to 175 degrees and dipping the curd into it with a ladle to heat it through until it's melty and stretchy), so I followed Cheese Queen, who said to put your curds in a bowl and microwave it for a minute. You'll see that more whey has separated out, so pour it off, and zap it for another 30 seconds. Repeat the draining of the whey and sprinkle in some salt. I used some fine popcorn salt, maybe a 1/2 -1 tsp. and nuked it for 30 more seconds.

When it was done, I dumped it out on the (clean) counter as you can see on the left:
You get to start kneading/stretching it and getting it all smooth and cheese-looking. Since it's so hot right now from the microwave, you'll want to start pressing and folding the smooshy curd pile with a wooden spoon:
And after a bit, even though it's still pretty warm, you can use your hand to press and fold the cheese like kneading bread dough. **revision: Apparently draining out all the whey and stretching the curd too much results in a tough cheese. Mine's a little less than ideal now that it's had a day in the fridge, so next time, I'm going to follow the technique described in steps 7-14 in the link from chow.com. When I try it again, I'll post!**
When it's smooth, you can roll it into a ball and YOU'VE JUST MADE CHEESE!!!!
I immediately sliced up some tomato and avocado and basil. And then glutted myself.
Cheese Queen says to store it in cold water in the fridge for up to a week.

Decadent Drinks...in maybe a week.

Very early this morning, Zips caught an old program on the Food network or the Cooking network or something that featured our favorite iron chef Cat Cora cookin' with Rocco DiSpirito and one of their projects was making Limoncello. Limoncello Lemonade is something we enjoyed in a rare moment of indulgence (and imbibing) in Chicago at a restaurant called the Grand Lux Cafe (make a reservation. order the beignets!!!!) It turns out it's basically vodka, lemon peels, and simple syrup.

We had some plain old vodka laying around in the seldom used booze cart we have in the kitchen, so I used a vegetable peeler to strip all the yellow (and none of the white) off 6 lemons and pour about a quart of vodka over them. It just has to sit (days? a week?) until the peels are no longer yellow (all the good lemony oils out of 'em). Then I guess we'll strain it and add the simple syrup.

Believe me. I'll let you know when it's ready!!!

More Noodles for Comfort Foods

I spent a summer studying spanish in spain when I was an undergraduate. Even though we got awful cafeteria food for breakfast and lunch, all of my memories involve great food moments, from the avocado tomato bocadillos we bought downstairs in the snack shop to the enormous paellas cooked by the school's superintendent over outdoor grills to my first gazpacho. I haven't found a gazpacho recipe that's close to what I had, but in lieu, here's a DELICIOUS cold soup recipe. I've actually tried several different cold soups with cucumbers and avocados rather unsuccessfully. (one was waaaay rich and actually put me off avocados for a little while. that's just wrong) But this one is the one. Oh, and if for some reason you find yourself unable to eat solid foods, this is way better than a steady diet of protein shakes:

We call it Green Goddess Soup

1-2 cucumbers

1-2 ribs celery

1 ripe avocado

1/4 c. parsley

handful of fresh mint leaves (1/4 cup)

1 garlic clove

juice of 1/2 lemon

This has 2 major steps. The first requires a juicer, the second requires your blender

Juice the parsley, celery, and half of the cucumber (this means if you're using 1 cuke, juice half of it. If you're using 2 cukes, then juice one of them)

Blend garlic, rest of cucumber, avocado, mint and lemon juice together. Add juice to blender and blend until smooth.

Chill it. Garnish it with some finely diced onion.

And as you can see, I've been at it again with the pasta machine. Today, despite sunny weather pushing 100 degrees, I wanted to make some simple noodles for chik'n noodle soup. My absolute favorite. So I went on the prowl for some eggless noodle recipe.
It's surprisingly difficult to find "eggless noodle recipe" that actually yields a recipe. But I ended up simply (SO simple!) mixing

2 c. all purpose flour + 1/2 c. water

Knead it for 5 min. Let it rest 20 min. Then RUN THAT PUPPY THROUGH YOUR PASTA MACHINE!!! And afterward, well, isn't this exactly what tea towels and laundry racks are made for?
It was SO EASY. And produced the best, most velvety, freshest noodles in soup I've ever had. Zips went after the noodles when I cut them into little 2" pieces. Then proclaimed this the best chik'n noodle soup I've ever made, that she's ever eaten.
(just a box and a can of vegetable broth simmered with celery, a little onion, carrots, parsley, bay leaves, and some quorn meatless chik'n tenders. I think I'll add a little cilantro and of course squeeze of lemon and sprinkle of pepper). In Vietnam they eat soup for breakfast so you sweat and cool off. That's how I'm going to justify my soup dinner in late July in southern New Mexico! Enjoy!

Practice Makes Perfect (Pasta)

One (okay two) of the amazing gifts I got last christmas was this pasta and ravioli maker-- neither of which have seen the light of day since December. In the great unpacking, I decided there was no good reason not to break it in. I'll spare you my lamentations-- I didn't read or follow the instructions very closely in my feverish desire for handmade noodles. It turns out I am as impatient and haphazard a pasta-maker as I am a baker. The pasta dough (very simply, 2 1/4c. flour + 3 eggs mixed, kneaded, rested) seemed incredibly hard and impliable. I didn't run it through the machine on its fattest setting 10 times before I started thinning it. I made fettuccine instead of spaghetti (I was too scared of them jamming, sticking, becoming a giant mess that I'd have to convince everyone was spaetzle!).

And yet it all turned out deliciously!!!!!!!!! I may have screwed myself into having to make fresh pasta from now on. Sure, it's a bit cumbersome, but the REWARD! Here you can see the evolution of my technique from the overfloured, crumbly noodles at the bottom right to the delectable longer noodles to the left.

Zips made up the sauce while I did the noodles. They literally cooked in boiling water for like a minute. ONE minute. Maybe one and a half.

Later that evening, with the handful of noodles left over (and okay that I hid from everyone else) I whizzed up some of my pesto and had a midnight snack!

And today I busted out the ravioli attachment. I decided to mix it up and follow the recipe for spinach pasta (whiz up a cup of wilted baby spinach with a tablespoon or two of water, mix the spinach paste in with an egg, then mix yer green eggs into 2 c. of flour, knead, rest) and add a simple ricotta cheese filling.

The ravioli attachment requires a more refined hand than I had. Although my pasta-rolling skills have improved exponentially from yesterday, I still had sheets that weren't quite wide enough to accommodate the ravioli-filling rollers. It was a mess. Technically, it still is a mess, since I haven't pulled myself up from my pasta coma to go clean up.

Zipper was fascinated. Interested in the machine itself (since I was paying more attention to it than her). Interested when I cut the raviolis apart. Really interested in the ricotta filling.*

The spinach-ricotta ravioli was another smashing success. I think tomorrow or soon I will whip up a ton of noodles and let them dry for us to use or freeze. It's really exciting.

* full disclosure: I couldn't keep Zips out of the ricotta. And I still ate these raviolis.

New Painting for Bastille Day!

We're finally settling into our new digs, and hoping we can rent this home for more than a year! We finally bought some furniture to assemble and put our tv, albums and books in and on. With this new stab at sophistication, we had a vast expanse of wall behind the tv, and I've been toting this huge (30"x60") unpainted canvas that I bought at a goodwill store for like $3 (with this unbelievable print of a fish that I discarded immediately). With the desire for simplicity and elegance, I drew on my inner Agnes Martin and practiced a great deal of restraint.

I used quite a bit of my titanium white acrylic and some end papers of some old, old books I've been lugging around for this exact use. And then I stopped before I messed it all up. Here's more Agnes Martin, if you're interested. She worked in Taos, NM. I hope to be able to see some of her work in person.