The Messy Chef goes "Beyond Macaroni"

It has been roughly two years since my last post--and not because I haven't been cooking or making messes during that time. It is, instead, largely because free time is fleeting, cooking is utilitarian, and typing is done with one hand while holding a sleeping baby in the other.

But the time has come to revive the Messy Chef, who is now a messy artist outside of the kitchen as well. I've been sewing! Well, mostly buying fabric and patterns in the hopes that one day this baby will nap independently and I will have the time to sew...but every now and again I sneak away to trace a pattern or stitch a few pieces together, and it's great!

As a mom, you quickly learn that there are one million and one ways to make messes, and only two main uses for macaroni--favorite meal, and favorite art project. Therefore, the new Messy Chef will be all about exploring the creative world Beyond Macaroni, both in the kitchen and out! I will still make a mess of things, I promise...and with the help of a special little someone, our messes are going to be delightfully just this side of out-of-control.

Gluten Free Waffles

After searching high and low for a gluten-free and egg-free waffle recipe online, I found nothing. Boo. I even tried one recipe from the back of my Ener-G sweet rice flour box (although, to their credit, they did mention that egg replacers would not work in the provided gluten-free waffle recipe). Abysmal. But then I thought to myself: "Sarah, you are a smart girl...you can do this." So after a mini-pity party, I got back to it. This time, I used all of my Bachelor of Science smarts to make waffle genius all by myself. As an added incentive, I decided to make the waffles in cow and duck form, and I think this was the little something that pushed these waffles over the edge. You could try to duplicate my results with a conventional, square waffle iron, but I dunno...

Sarah's Smarty Pants Gluten Free Waffles

Makes approximately 10-12 ducks and cows

Dry ingredients:

1 cup brown rice flour

1 cup Bob's Red Mill gluten free AP baking flour

1/4 cup sweet rice flour (I used Ener-G brand)

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon sea salt

1 teaspoon xanthan gum

Wet ingredients:

1/2 cup almond milk

1/2 cup water

2 Tablespoons sunflower oil

2 Tablespoons agave nectar

1 Tablespoon lecithin granules

Preheat your waffle iron.

In a medium bowl, whisk together dry ingredients to incorporate. In another small bowl, whisk together wet ingredients until slightly foamy. Add the wet mix to the dry, and combine well. The batter will thicken as you mix, on account of the xanthan gum working its magic. You do want the batter to be on the thicker side, so fight any urges from deep within to thin it out further (one of my many mistakes the first time around).

Make sure your waffle iron is up to temperature, then coat lightly with cooking spray. Because this batter doesn't pour particularly well, use a spoon to place about 1/3 cup of batter into the iron. Depending on your waffle iron, you may need to fill it more or less to make a happy waffle. Be sure to cook it long enough to form a bit of golden-crispy-ness, about 3-5 minutes, depending.

Again, I am placing the cows and ducks in a freezer container for Grant breakfasts. "Big strong Grant Pants had a farm, E-I-E-I-O, and on his farm he had a duck, with a quack-quack here, and a quack-quack there, here a quack, there a quack, everywhere a quack-quack, big strong Grant Pants had a farm, E-I-E-I-O..."

The Voluptuous Vegan: A book review

Book by: Myra Kornfeld and George Minot

I love this book! Love love love. I can say, with complete and utter honesty, that this book has never steared me wrong. To date, I have made many, many recipes from this book, and with each one, I am blown away with how the flavors and textures come together to make...magic!

There are so many highlights, I hardly know where to start: 1) the recipes are vegetable based (I know this seems like a given for a vegan cookbook, but many just replace eggs, meat, and dairy with soy); 2) the format of the book is smarty-pants! Recipes are collected in Menus, making planning a complete meal a no brainer; 3) because I am such a messy chef by nature, I love that the book tells me when to do what. Each meal comes together with minimal mess and fuss; and, 4) because so much backgroud and "education" is provided throughout the book, it is easy to know how to make substitutions for my hunny-bunny.

Case in point, last night I crafted a yummy "Chicken" Pot Pie, and was able to make it Grant friendly with just a few simple substitutions (namely, spelt for wheat. Bam!). Not only was this pot pie filled with delicious green beans and root veggies, but served with it was an orangey-cranberry sauce--making the whole dish taste like the Thanksgiving dinner I always wanted, but never came close to having. In addition to being soul-warming, comfort food, this pie was also a lovely excuse to make use of my most favourite pie dish from Emile Henry (a Christmas gift from my fabulous sister in law). If only I had an Emile Henry for every occasion!

In addition to this recipe, there are many others comprised of pure genious: African Groundnut Stew with Spicy Sauteed Spagetti Squash, Thai Vegetable Stew (a yummy green curry), Shepherd's Pie, Sweet and Hot Sesame Nori Strips, Butternut-lemongrass Soup, and Tempeh Bourguinonne with Mashed Potatoes and Parsnips (step aside Julia Child!). It is hard to believe that this book has been around since 2000. Even today, almost 10 years later, the Voluptuous Vegan by Myra Kornfeld and George Minot is creative, adventurous, healthy, inspiring, and relevant. I suppose the only major change I have noticed in the last 5 years of personally owning the book, is the ease with which most of the ingredients are now available. Thanks Whole Foods. Can we look forward to a second edition some time soon?

Going Green?

I have a very dear and lovely friend who has recently decided to "go raw." I'll have to admit that while I have attempted following pretty much every other incarnation of vegan or vegetarian diet...raw, I have never really wanted for myself. Maryann's birthday was coming up, so I thought I would try to find a cool raw "un"cookbook for her, and in the process came across this recipe (which I wrote down in my mind, so I'm not even completely sure where it came from, or if I remember it correctly).

Raw Key Lime Pie Smoothie!

Serves 1

3/4 cup fresh G. Smith apple juice (Granny Smith, but Grant likes to take credit)

Juice of 2 small limes (about 1/4 cup)

1 ripe banana, chopped and frozen

1/2 avocado, scooped out

2 t agave (or whatever is necessary to make it delicious)

For the apple juice I quartered 2 granny smith apples, and roughly chopped off the core. You don't HAVE to do this, but because apple seeds do contain trace amounts of cyanide, many granola types recommend removing the seeds--especially if you are planning to drink a bushel of apples. On that note, I suppose you don't have to make the juice fresh either, but when in Rome, or Los Angeles...

I decided to go ahead and throw the limes, halved, into the juicer as well. Why bother juicing them by hand when you have a dirty juicer just sitting there, waiting for anther meal? The juicer, on a side note, happens to have a been a birthday gift from the lovelies Maryann and Eric. Ahhh, life, coming full circle.

The only necessary step, after doing all of your juicing, is to whirl everything together in a blender. Taste the mixture, before pouring it out of the blender, to make sure it is sweet enough. You may need more agave for yummies, depending on the sweetness of your apples, limes, and banana.

And of course, the only small problem with this recipe is that number of dishes that have to be done afterwards! But I guess that is why they call me the messy chef...I'll leave those for another time. For now, to enjoy my pie!

Spelt Sourdough Waffles (vegan)

After several, several, unfinished blog entries...I finally planned ahead enough to provide pictures. Equipped with pictures, I am therefore ready to write my first real blog entry. Yay!

A little background: my darling, wonderful husband is egg and wheat free. He suffers from, as so many people in this country, unexplainable digestive trouble. What he does know is that eggs and wheat cause him trouble--so I go to great lengths to prepare him "safe," delicious foods. He does, however, do fine on spelt. This is lucky as spelt is a close relative to wheat, although lower in gluten and higher in protein, and acts very closely to wheat in many products. With most recipes, a slight tweaking is all that is needed to make "normal" treats. Yay for normal (he has it hard enough).

For the last few weeks I have been doing some experimenting with sourdough starter. After a trip home to my native Alaska, we brought back a powdered sourdough starter that ended up starting nothing at all. For the second attempt at healthy starter, I starting out trying to catch a wild yeast, but then eventually gave up and dumped in a packet of organic yeast after 5 days of nothing. Since that time, wildness has taken over, and I have a healthy starter as you can see below:

I attribute my difficulties with starting my starter to the fact that I was using spelt instead of the more conventional wheat. My sourdough just didn't like spelt, but eventually it gave in. Use what you got, if you got it...and here is a good website for reference to gettin' it: http://www.io.com/~sjohn/sour.htm

So, to 1/2 cup of my starter, I added 1 cup plus 2 Tablespoons of whole spelt flour, 1 tablespoon of unrefined sugar, and 1 cup of almond milk (feel free to use any non dairy milk, or make it butter"milk" by adding 1 tsp. of flavorless vinegar to the ndm). This is the "Overnight Sponge" which does in fact need to sit at room temperature for 8-10 hours (overnight). This is what it looks like, but be sure to keep it covered during that time:

After 8-10 hours, it's time to make the batter! Use your choice of egg replacer for 1 egg. I used 1 Tablespoon of my own alteration, whisked with 3 Tablespoons water (see recipe below). To the "egg", add 2 Tablespoons of oil, a heaping 1/4 teaspoon of salt, and 1/2 teaspoon baking soda. Add this mixture to the overnight starter, and blend till combined. I then poured the batter into a glass measuring cup for easy portioning:

Then all that is left is making the waffles according to the directions for your wafflemaker. Mine has interchangeable plates, and I was SO tempted use the cow and duck shaped mold...but for the sake of my husband who is hoping for waffles to replace his boxed, frozen variety, I'll save the farm for next time. So that's it! The waffles went straight into a freezer container to become early morning treats for the man. Next time, I'm going to try a gluten-free version...stay tuned!

Enjoy!

Spelt Sourdough Waffles (vegan)

Overnight Sponge:

1/2 cup hungry starter (pull straight from fridge)

1 cup plus 2 Tablespoons whole spelt flour

1 Tablespoon unrefined sugar (such as evaporated cane juice -or- sub honey or agave)

1 scant cup non-dairy milk (add 1 teaspoon vinegar for a butter"milk," which works best with soymilk)

Mix in a non-reactive bowl, covered, and let rest at room temperature overnight (8-10 hours).

Waffle Batter:

Egg replacer for 1 egg, recipe following

2 Tablespoons sunflower oil (my preference)

Heaping 1/4 teaspoon sea salt*

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

In a separate bowl, wisk together egg replacer ingredients, then add oil, salt, and baking soda. Add this "egg" mixture to the overnight starter, and it will get bubbly and happy. Follow your wafflemaker instructions to some yummy waffles!

* please don't use regular salt in anything ever, gross! If you still own this creepy stuff, spring the $2 for some sea salt and say goodbye to the past.

Egg Replacer

for light, fluffy, muffiney, cakey things

1/2 Tablespoon arrowroot

1/2 Tablespoon tapioca starch

1/8 teaspoon baking powder

a dash of xanthan gum (be judicious, a little goes a long way)

This gets whisked with 3 T water to make 1 egg, and viola!