Amaranth with Hardy Veggie Stirfry

While in Belize we would cook with Callaloo leaves as a leafy green. Andrea would tell me that most people just think this is a weed, but the greens and the seeds are actually quite healthy and tasty. Then low and behold, I come to Chicago and Dr. J (the women who started Black Oaks Center that we work with through ADPSR) told me she had a dream about giving me amaranth. So she brought some over for me. It was crazy because I had no idea that you could get Amaranth around here. She said that Amaranth grows all over their land. Supposedly Amaranth like buckwheat is a complete protein which is rare for a grain. So tonight I decided to experiment with what I had in my fridge. In Belize they told me you could use the seeds in baking bread, but I read the package and it said that it does well in numerous things. Last week I made a dahl soup and threw some of them in. Quite good. Probably my favorite soup I've made in awhile. Tonight I though hey lets cook it like couscous. It kind of looks like it anyway. And this is what I came up with...

Amaranth with Hardy Veggie Stirfry

Ingredients

2 cups veggie broth (use the broth made from veggie scrapes)
1/4 cup amaranth seeds
(i'd suggest doubling this recipe for the amount of veggie stirfry)

1/2 small onion largely chopped
1 zucchini thinly sliced
1/4 head of red cabbage chopped
1 small beet peeled and thinly sliced
handful of fresh spinach
2 T olive oil
2 cloves garlic minced
1/4 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp poppy seeds
1 T tumeric
2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
2 T lemon juice

Start with boiling the veggie broth and slowly add amaranth seeds. Lightly boil seeds with veggie broth for about 25 mins. You might need to add more water. Cook until seeds are chewy but still firm and liquid is gone.

Heat oil in a wok. When almost to the point of smoking, add cumin seeds and poppy seeds until they become fragrant (about 2 mins). Toss in onions and garlic until golden. Add beets, cabbage, lemon juice, tumeric, and worcestershire sauce and cook for about 4 minutes. Add zucchini and cook for about 2 more minutes. Lastly add spinach. Cook until spinach is only slightly wilted.

Place stirfry on top of a layer of amaranth seeds.

Enjoy!!!

Pesto, Hollandaise, hardboiled egg Sandwich

When I made that delicious Vegetarian Eggs Benedict, I had a lot hollandaise sauce left over. So what can you do with it?? Make a sandwich!

• Multigrain Bread (from Flourish, I am interning there and helped bake this bread, but I can't share their secret recipe... sorry.. but it's good!!)
• Hollandaise Sauce (look for recipe on previous blog)
• 2 eggs
• 2 tbsp pesto (I used my mom's homemade pesto. You'll have to ask her about it...)
• lettuce (got from my CSA box from Farmer Tom's CSA)

This is a quick and easy sandwich! Slice the bread. Smear pesto on one piece of bread. Smear the refrigerated hollandaise sauce (now should be the consistency of spreadable butter) on the other. Hard boil an egg about 12 minutes so that it the egg yolk isn't completely chalky yet, but it's cooked through. Slice the egg and place on sandwich with the lettuce. Perfecto!

Healthy Blueberry Banana Muffins

In my previous blog I talked about some muffins that I made with egg whites... hence the hollandaise sauce. This is it...

• 2 cups whole wheat flour
• 1/3 cup brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons white sugar
  
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 really ripe mashed bananas (if you have bananas that became too ripe to eat. Don't throw away. Place them in the freezer until you are ready to bake.)
  
• 4 egg whites
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 Tbsp plain organic yogurt
  
• 1 cup fresh blueberries

(I got the base recipe from allrecipes...submitted by ELEMMIRE) I just make a few amendments.

Grease muffin pan and preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix together flour, sugars, cinnamon, baking soda, and baking powder in one bowl.

Then mash up bananas in another bowl with egg whites, vanilla extract and yogurt.

Add the two mixtures together until mixed completely. It's best if you have a whisk (I unfortunately don't have this).

Put batter in 12 muffin pans, filling them about 2/3 full. Bake for about 20 minutes or until the inside is done (you can check with a toothpick. If there is uncooked dough on the toothpick after you poke the middle, it's not done.)

Enjoy!

Veggie Eggs Benedict (not vegan)

I just started getting a CSA box from Farmer Tom's CSA and I've been experimenting with all the new food. It was like Christmas time when I opened up my box of foodies. I didn't even know what some of the items were, and I thought I was pretty well versed in types of food. I was wrong. Friday night I made some stewed Indian red and yellow beets (yellow beats? who knew!), and some kale in peanut sauce over rice. They turned out not bad, but I couldn't find my camera. So I'll have to make it again to put it on the blog sometime.

But today I woke up inspired... After all the stress this week brought. I needed to cook with abandon to work out some of my anxieties. Yesterday I baked Blueberry banana muffins (I'll show you this soon), but it only used egg whites so I had egg yolks left over. I decided to freeze them (with a little salt) in ice cube trays so I could use them again. Not wanting to waste the yolks, I started with the idea of Hollandaise sauce....yumm... I am very impressed with this dish and I'm excited to test it out on some friends/family. If you cook this meal, please let me know what you think!

Now to the recipe. *please rememeber I don't measure so the ingredients are estimated* This is what came out of it...

VEGGIE EGG BENEDICT
(pan fried eggs with stir-fryed kale, onions and sesame seeds on top of fresh sourdough with a light topping of hollandaise sauce.)

Sourdough
3 small slices
*see previous blog on how to make your own. Please note amendments to the recipe at the end.

Hollandaise Sauce

• 4 scrambled eggs yolks
• 1 Tbsp lemon juice
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 1 stick melted butter

Kale Stirfry

• 1 head of kale chopped
  
• 1/2 medium white onion
  
• 2 cloves garlic (1 tsp chopped)
  
• 1/4 c water
• 1 Tbsp vinegar
• 1 Tbsp lemon juic
  
• 1 Tbsp ginger, garlic and grapeseed oil
• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• dash of sugar
• 1/2 t salt
• 1 t savory
• 1 t sesame seeds

Fried Eggs

• 2 eggs

First thing you need to make the sourdough.

Hollandaise Sauce (I tried making this at the Speckled Bird Cafe, but mistakenly used egg whites instead of yolks. Doesn't work!!!)
Melt the stick of butter and set aside. Whisk together the egg yolks (please don't throw away the egg whites use them as merengue or in a baking recipe like healthy blueberry muffins OR instead of fried eggs have scrabbled egg whites), salt and the lemon juice. Set up a double broiler, or if you don't have one like me, place a pie pan on top of a small soup pan (preferably one that you can fit the pie pan into but is still resting on the sides) with water in it. Don't let the water boil. It should only be on the verge of boiling and the water should not be touching the pie pan. From there put the lemon juice, egg yolk, salt mixture into the pan and keep whisking. Gradually pour the melted butter into the mixture whisking the whole time. It should thickin and grow in size. It took me about 3 minutes. Take sauce out of pan so it doesn't keep heating and place to the side covered. It probably will form a slight layer on the top if you let it sit for awhile, but if you stir it up it'll be fine.

Kale Stirfry
Place the olive and grapeseed oil into a hot pan on medium heat. When the oil is hot, fry onions (keep left over onion for another dish tomorrow) with garlic until golden brown. Add the chopped kale into the pan and stir fry together. After a about 30 seconds put the water (can use the water from the pan in the hollandaise sauce. waste not want not) into the pan. It should sizzle immediately. Then add vinegar and lemon juice. Keep stirring the ingredients all the while. Then add sugar, salt, savory, and sesame seeds. Continue stirfry until the greens looks slightly wilted but not completely limp. Set aside covered

Fried eggs or (scrambled egg whites)
Make sure you use a flat non stick pan. Put a small amount of olive oil in the pan then break two eggs into the pan making sure they don't touch and egg yolks remain intact. Once the whites turn white on one side flip the eggs. If you like the eggs gooey don't fry too long, but i like mine not gooey so I end up having to break the yolk once the white parts are set.

Now put it all together. Place three slices of sourdouch on a plate. Layer kale then eggs, then a little more kale. Garnish the top of the masterpiece with some hollandaise sauce.

Umm umm good.

Sourdough Bread

I shadowed this wonderful women at Blackberry Farm about a month ago, and she let me take home some of their 10 year old starter. I brought the starter up to Cincinnati and baked some delicious bread with it!!! I didn't have a baking stone or a proofer. So instead we put it in the bathroom and made a hot bath that made the room hot and steamy. Perfect large proofer. We made two loaves and they worked out great! It's quite easy to make too!

It's based on a baker's Percentage. I made two 1 kg loaves which is the gram measurement. um um good!

Ingredient Percent Gram
Flour 100 940g
warm Water 70 658g
Salt 2.54 24g
Yeast .1 2g
stiff 40 376g
total 212.64 2Kg

Feeding: 25% starter
50% water
100% flour
*I've found that for me equal parts of everything works better

to make liquid start : equal parts flour and water
- feed couple times between converting from liquid to stiff and visa versa
- feed about every 8-12 hour outside and 1/per week in fridge

I realized I forgot to say how to actually make the bread...
Mix together dry ingredients. Then add stiff and gradually add water. Sometimes you'll use less water so just work with it. It'll take practice. Start kneeding bread for about 10 minutes until everything is worked together and the dough is very elastic and cohesive. Place dough into a greased bowl and cover loosely. Place in an area that is preferably 80 degrees F. Let rise for about 2 hours. Take out dough onto a table that is lightly floured. With fingers punch down bread. Form into a tight ball (for shaping you should read some books or articles about it). sprinkle flour on top and Let rise again for about an hour loosely covered with syran wrap and flat on the table. Then punch down again and mold into whatever shape you want boule, baguette, loaf, etc. Let rise another 45 minutes covered in a humid place. About 20 mins in start to preheat oven and place a metal pan in broiler and baking stone in the oven. Cut slits on top of bread with seratted knife and place on baking stone in preheated oven. Also put three icecubes in the pan so that it'll moisten the oven and set the bread crust. After about 35 minutes check the bread. It should be golden and the bottom should sound hollow when you tap it. Let it cool, and enjoy.

Rollinia and Malay Apple

I was looking through my posts and realized I didn't blog about this craziness. It kind of feels like a turf ball, but the inside taste like a keylime pie. It's found in Belize, but you won't ever get this in the states because after a couple hours after you pick it, it wilts and isn't edible anymore. It's called a Rollinia... The little red thing in the back ground is a malay apple (not sure how to spell that). That is kind of sweet with a white center.

JaCeKa - Mediterraen Vegetable Couscous

Saddest thing... my dad and I decided to play chef about 2 months ago, and I wrote the recipe down, but now.... 2 months later, I lost the sheet and forget what was on it. It was DELICIOUS!!! Incredibly rich and just umm good. Here is a picture of it. I'll try to tell you what was in it, but it could be completely wrong, and I don't remember the amounts.

Diced eggplant
artichoke hearts
onions
canned tomatoes
kalmata olives
cumin
olive oil
lemon juice
cayenne pepper
allspice
Parmesan cheese on top (this was VERY VERY STRONG cheese. I found out later that I'm allergic to it. It makes my geographic tongue act up. Sad because this was some incredible cheese.)

on top of garlic and pine nut couscous.

Man it was so good. I'll see if I can duplicate it.