Hail Cesar Salad

I’m going to tempt fate a bit and say that Spring has arrived. The crocus is blooming, the tulips are poking their heads up and my eyes are starting to itch which means something is growing. Nothing on the garlic front yet but that is to be expected.

If you are in the Midwest and thinking about cleaning up your garden - don’t do that yet! The bees and other pollinators are still in their nests and aren’t ready to be moved so please please wait, you’ll need them later in the year to pollinate your flowers, fruit trees, and some of your veggie crops. 

I am close to finishing my Master Gardener program - I have 2 modules left to review and 4 more Q & A sessions - then we get to the fun part - volunteering - I can’t wait.

A while ago my friend Ann Wasescha gifted Ellen Holtwick and me a vegetarian cookbook called First Mess by Laura Wright. It lived with Ellen for a while and has recently come to live with me. There are so many wonderful recipes that I want to try, I hardly know where to start. 

Dan is not a huge fan of tempeh, he says it has a bitter taste - I don’t taste it but I usually steam the tempeh first, which removes the bitterness and he’s good to go. This was a delicious salad and pretty easy to make. Enjoy!

Ingredients:

Dressing (makes more than you need):

2 T raw cashew butter

2 T water

1.5 T fresh lemon juice

3 cloves garlic - grated 

1 t dijon mustard

1 t minced capers (I left this out)

1 T nutritional yeast

3 T olive oil 

Salt and pepper to taste

Salad:

1 1/2 crowns of broccoli - chopped into florets

1 t sweet paprika

1 t smoked paprika

1 t maple syrup

1 t apple cider vinegar

1/2 t soy sauce

2 t olive oil

1/2 block tempeh

Instructions:

In a jar with a tight-fitting lid, add the cashew butter, water, lemon juice, salt, and pepper. Shake until combined. Add garlic, dijon, capers (if using), nutritional yeast, and oil. Shake again and set aside

Steam (or roast) the broccoli. In a small bowl combine the paprikas, maple syrup, apple cider vinegar, and soy sauce set aside. 

Heat olive oil in a skillet until shimmering add crumbled tempeh and spread out into a single layer. Cook approx. 2 minutes (until brown), then stir it up and let brown on the other side. Add paprika mixture and toss until tempeh is coated. Remove from heat.

Place broccoli on a platter and drizzle cashew butter dressing over it. Add tempeh and garnish with nutritional yeast and fresh ground pepper. 

Thanks for stopping by!

Roasted Eggplant with Soba Noodles

I work up this morning to a beautiful sunrise. The days are getting longer and warmer, which means I can get a short walk in before work during the week - yeah!

I’m still working my way through the Master Gardener program - should be finished with the course work by mid-April and then the fun part actually doing stuff. Our garden planning is underway and I started some of my seeds for leeks, fennel, and some flowers yesterday - looking forward to another growing season. 

In my effort to make different things I bought an eggplant at the store this week. Usually, I make garlic eggplant but I wanted to do something different so I hopped on over to Kenko Kitchens and used their Japanese Salad as a base for dinner. 

I didn’t have broccolini (but I did have broccoli), while it’s not the same thing it’s close enough. I also didn’t have rice bran oil - and honestly, I have no idea where I might get it. I did check my local Asian grocery store but they didn’t have any so I used olive oil. I added more mushrooms and edamame because I love them both and it made the “salad” a “meal.” This is definitely on the rotation. 

Ingredients:

1.5 crowns of broccoli - cut into florets

100 grams of buckwheat noodles 

1 cup edamame

1 cup enoki mushrooms

2 tbsp organic tamari

2 tbsp sesame oil

3 tbsp miso paste

1 large eggplant

1 tbsp olive oil

Method:

Cut the eggplant into 5-6 wedges length-wise. Rub the eggplants with 2 tbsp of the miso paste and the olive oil then place on an oven tray lined with parchment paper. Cook the eggplant for 20-30 minutes until golden and soft - flipping the eggplant wedges over halfway in between.

In a pot of boiling water, cook the soba noodles for 5-10 minutes until just al dente, strain, rinse and set aside in a bowl of cold water to prevent the noodles from cooking further and sticking together.

Cut off the ends of the enoki mushrooms and wash thoroughly. Place in a frying pan with the sesame oil and cook for 2 minutes. Add in 1T miso paste, tamari and broccoli. Add in the edamame and then add in the soba noodles, coating in the tamari/miso sauce, and turn off from the heat (broccoli and edamame should still have a slight crunch and be vibrant in color).

Place noodles and greens in a bowl then top with the roasted miso eggplant. Serve with pickled ginger and wasabi on the side.

Bread in a Day

Have you ever had one of those weeks where you tell yourself every day that you will prep bread before you go to bed to bake in the morning and then you forget EVERY SINGLE DAY - yep that was me last week. 

I’d been promising Dan a loaf of cranberry walnut for a couple weeks but could not get my s@#$ together enough to deliver. We don’t eat a lot of bread but occasionally fresh bread is the order of the day. So after promising and not delivering I found a recipe for No Knead Bread that I decided to give a try.

I normally have coffee with some friends on Saturday morning so I decided to prep the bread before the call, let it rise and then bake it later in the day. Have you ever noticed they say you should wait until it’s fully cooled before slicing - are they serious? There is nothing better than a warm slice of fresh bread - IMHO. 

Ingredients:

1 ¼ cups lukewarm water not too hot or it will kill the yeast @ 110 - 115 degrees

1 ½ teaspoon active dry yeast

1 teaspoon maple syrup

3 cups all-purpose flour plus 3 T 

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup chopped walnuts

1 cup dried cranberries

Instructions:

Whisk water, yeast, and maple syrup together in a measuring cup. Set aside until bubbles appear on the surface. In the meantime, stir flour and salt together in a large mixing bowl. Add water mix to flour mix and stir until combined (it will look scraggly and that’s perfectly fine).

Cover the bowl with a clean dishtowel and leave to rise at room temperature for about 2 hours, or until big and puffy (time will vary depending on altitude, humidity, and temperature).

Preheat the oven to 450°F. Place an 8-9 inch round Dutch oven with an oven-safe lid in the oven as it preheats. Once the oven and Dutch oven are blazing hot, carefully remove the Dutch oven to a heat-proof surface. Remove the lid and carefully line with a piece of baking parchment (the Dutch oven is HOT! There will be parchment overhang, that’s fine.)

Scrape the dough into the lined Dutch oven in one piece. Cover with the lid (just place the lid over the parchment overhang). Bake for 30 minutes, then carefully remove the lid and finish baking for around 15 minutes or until golden brown, crusty, and baked through. Remove from the Dutch oven and place on a rack to cool.

Tonight we used our delicious bread to make Vegan BLAT - Vegan bacon, lettuce, avocado, and tomato sandwiches with a spicy sriracha mayo dressing - they were delicious!

Thanks for stopping by!