Recipes

Below I have reproduced much of my food writing that I originally posted on various blogs. In college, I lived in a vegetarian/vegan co-op, so I tend to cook my deserts vegan unless I have a good reason not to. I will mark all those that are vegan with a (V), and those for which I've mentioned how to easily make vegan with (V-able).

I have many more recipes in my handwritten recipe books. Some I copied from the internet, and others are original or from family and friends' oral traditions. If you e-mail me, I may type up more and post here. Recipes ought to be shared; recipes are not copyrightable.

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Also see my separate page, with photos, of Lavender and Apple recipes, submitted to the September 2007 They Go Really Well Together.

Pizza

Pizza is a straightforward concoction. Begin with a simple white bread dough — do not use any oil or fat in the dough. For example, combine 4 cups all-purpose flour, 1/2 Tbsp salt, 1/2 Tbsp yeast, and then mix/knead in enough cold water for a satiny dough (roughly a cup). Let the dough rise, rolled into a tight ball on a floured surface and covered, for perhaps an hour.

Adjust the oven's racks to low, and put in a baking stone — a large flat ceramic piece that has high specific heat, and on which you will directly bake the pizza. You can use an upside-down cookie sheet, but higher specific heat is better. Preheat oven 500°F, or as hot as it will go. Professional pizzeria ovens are wood-fired and stay at about 800°F. Eventually, when I am grown up and have my own house and land, I will build an outdoor brick-and-clay oven that goes this hot. In outdoor- and pizzeria-ovens, the floor of the oven is lined with heat-proof bricks which act like a baking stone in a home oven; the pizzas and breads are baked directly on the bricks.

When the dough has doubled (about an hour), sprinkle a pizza peel liberally with corn meal — it's hard to have too much. With a well-floured hand, grab a large handful of dough. On a floured surface, roll into a ball, and flatten into a disk. Move to the pizza peel, and stretch out with the tips of fingers into a large, thin circle. Be sure not to puncture the disk — we don't want an annulus. If you're really good, you can stretch the dough quite a bit in the air.

Cover the crust with a thin layer of sauce. Sauce? While the dough was rising, pulse a can of diced tomatoes in a food processor with a pinch of salt and some fresh basil, and let drain in a sieve for half an hour. Be sure to leave half an inch of crust at the edge of the pizza. Transfer to 500°F oven, and bake for five minutes. Remove from oven, and place half-inch cubes of mozzarella with half-inch spacing on top. Return to oven for five more minutes. If your oven goes to 800°F, you only need five minutes total bake time (and should use a higher-gluten dough; at home-oven temperatures, a mix of all-purpose and cake flour is best). Slice a fresh heirloom tomato, and when pizza is done, remove from oven and press slices of tomato and leaves of basil into the still-melted cheese. Sprinkle with a little salt, and a capful of extra-virgin olive oil.

You can serve the pizzas on the stone, removed from the oven and placed on something that will protect the table from the heat. The stone, with its high specific heat and hearty aesthetic, will keep the pizzas warm as a centerpiece. But do not cut the pizzas on the stone: for one, many stones do not take well to steal knives scratching them, but even moreso, the ceramic will absorb oils from the mozzarella, and next time you bake with it, those spots will blacken and smoke.

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Many beans, e.g. black, pinto, and cannellini, are sweet enough to eat plain, although they also marry well with other flavors. Navy beans, however, though often interchangeable with cannellini in recipes, must not be eaten plain: long after they go mushy when boiling, they still have that awful flavor combination of boring and slightly bitter and starchy. Even sautéing with oregano, salt, and olive oil, my usual fix to all foods, doesn't save them, although it makes them slightly more palatable.

However, a hint from Boston baked beans does the trick: sweeten it.

In a saucepan, melt and add
When butter starts to simmer, add
Reduce heat to medium and cook, stirring, for a few minutes, until beans are heated all the way through. Adjust flavors to taste.

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Vegetable Soups

Vegetable soups are simple and delicious. A good soup will consist mostly of whatever vegetables happen to be in season. For a quick soup (one that does not start with a stock), you simply sauté the onion-like vegetables in olive oil, and then add water, other vegetables, salt, and spices. Boil until everything is cooked. Soup keeps forever in the freezer — since you can easily bring it back to a boil for ten minutes before eating, the only food borne illness risk is botulism.

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Soupe Provençal (Winter)

The following soup is based on one from a friend, with some quantity-adjustments of my own.

Finely dice and place in a sieve set in a bowl; will with water to wash off the dirt. Place in a large pot and begin sautéing in olive oil. Meanwhile, finely dice and add to sauté, if you happen to have some celery you need to use up.

After a few minutes, add:
Bring to a boil, and simmer covered for at least 30 minutes. Serve with grated parmesan cheese.

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Soupe Végétal (Summer)

In a sauce pan (with well-fitting lid, hopefully), sautee in a bit more than you really need (it will help flavor the soup later). Cook (covered) for some time, stirring occasionally, until aromatic and well-cooked. Add and toss enough for the squash to absorb some of the oil. Add and bring to boil, cover, and reduce to simmer.

Slice kernels from the side of and add to mix. Let cook five to ten minutes, and add

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Quince Cake

Makes enough for a review session with 15 students; in fact, I doubled this recipe, and had a little more than necessary, but not too much more.

Preheat oven 350°F. Wash and core and chop into small slices. Place in saucepan, and add enough water to not quite cover. If quinces are not extremely ripe, add a handful of sugar. Set over high heat, bring to boil, and reduce to medium. Cook ten minutes or so, while you prepare the rest of the ingredients.

Prepare a couple loaf pans or one 9x13-inch pan: grease, then line with parchment, then grease again. Or a bunch of muffin tins, spray-greased. In standing mixer with paddle, combine (all numbers rough) Mix thoroughly, then pour in and let combine fully. In a liquid measuring cup lightly beat and pour into flour with mixer running; beat 30 seconds, scrape down sides, and beat again (or skip that part).

When quinces are easily mushed, scoop quinces into batter, one third at a time. Batter will be very liquidy. Pour into prepared pans, filling about 2/3 to the top. Bake 20-40 minutes (muffins are done in 20; glass lasagna pan takes about 25-30; large metal pan will take longer). Cake is done when tester comes out clean. Let cool before cutting for a stable, moist crumb, or enjoy a sticky gooey treat.

Remove from pans with parchment still on the bottom. Slice and load into tupperware, using parchment (or wax paper) to separate layers. Bring to review session, in an effort to bribe your students.

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Peach Crisp (V)

Preheat oven 350°F. Line a lasagna pan with foil, and cover the bottom of the pan with and sprinkle with healthy amounts of Mix by hand in the pan.

In a separate bowl, combine to taste:
Cover the peaches with this dry mixture. Bake for 40 minutes.

The lemon and cinnamon make for a particularly nice flavor combination.

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Chocolate Cake (V-able)

Marie Antoinette was right! Or, rather, Marie-Therese was, when she encouraged the commoners to eat rich, expensive desserts. I recently procured a copy of Rose Levy Beranbaum's The Cake Bible, a book I highly recommend. Ultimately, I hope to try every cake she suggests; over the last two weeks, I began that project with the first five of her recipes, in order, and also a few of her cakes later on. We've had almost one cake a night — no mean feat for a family of five.

It was with great pleasure, then, that I came upon an easy vegan gem. Beranbaum loves her butter, and her ingredient-sorted categories include All Egg Yolks, All Egg Whites, and Safe For Passover, but not, for instance, Low Fat (low saturated fat, yes, e.g. meringue). So when I saw a recipe from the '50s — she says it's an original, although I will paraphrase — that was safe for my godmother's birthday (my godmother tries to avoid dairy), I knew I had to try it. It turned out fantastic.

Preheat oven 350°F.

In a medium bowl, whisk together until smooth, and allow to cool. Whisk in
In bowl of standing mixer with padle (or by hand in a large bowl, I guess), combine dry ingredients: Add chocolate mixture, and mix on low until everything is moistened. Increase to medium and beat 1 minute to aerate.

Prepare two 8-inch cake pans, by (spray) greasing, and then lining the bottoms with circles of baker's parchment, and greasing again. Scrape batter (very liquidy) into prepared pans; it should only fill about 1/3 full (cake expands significantly). Bake 20 to 25 minutes.

Having cherries on hand, and having made a cake with brandied cherries earlier last week, I combined some cherry preserves and the brandy-cherry-syrup in a small frypan over low heat to dissolve. After turning out the first cake, I poured a thin layer of glaze over it, so that I could glue the top layer on. I then poured more glaze on the top of the cake, so that little bits rolled down the sides, and lined the outer edge of the cake top with cherry halves.

* Note: I used only 1/3 cup mayonnaise, since I misread the recipe. It worked fine. More will only make it richer. And I'm sure that vegan mayonnaise substitutes, such as Nayonnaise would work just as well. I would even be interested in trying this cake with Wildwood Garlic Aioli — I've had a mayonnaise cake made with garlic aioli before (a plain yellow cake; the cook also substituted rice flour for cake flour to make it gluten free, and it still turned out good), and Khymos suggests that chocolate and garlic might go well together with the addition of coffee. This recipe would definitely be good with some added instant espresso (I'd put in between a tsp and a Tbsp in the first step with the cocoa powder).

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Chocolate Raspberry Cake (V, and gluten-free-able)

Below is my signature dessert, which I usually think of as a vegan gluten-free brownie recipe, but I'll present here as a chocolate raspberry cake (as I had it for my birthday), with commentary on how to modify. As always, check local availability before committing to any particular fresh produce — by varying the fruit, one can make a seasonal cake in almost any season.

Cake

Preheat oven 350°F (325 for gluten-free). Grease two nine-inch round cake pans (or one 9x13 pan for brownies), and, for cakes, cut parchment or wax paper into circles to exactly fit on the bottom of the pans (for easier removal), place in, and grease both sides.

In blender, combine wet ingredients until smooth:
In standing mixer with paddle blade, mix dry ingredients:
Pour in wet ingredients. (For brownies, also add Mix, adding up to if you feel like batter is too dry (at school we don't get silken tofu, so I use 1 cup firm tofu and 1 cup soy milk; at home, silken tofu means that with the soy milk it is often too liquidy). Pour into greased pans, and bake until done. (Gluten free at 325 takes a little over an hour; hotter temperatures burn the edges. Glutinous can go faster and hotter.) Enjoy licking the extra batter off the pan: no eggs means no salmonella.

Frosting and assembly

Tofu generally comes in 16-oz packs, and I usually use about 9 oz in this cake. So the rest, rather than trying to keep it, goes into the frosting. (In theory one would have the presence of mind to do the frosting a day ahead, so that the tofu can set. But I never do.)

Wash and clean standing mixer bowl, and fit with wire whisk. Whip until smooth. (You might decide instead to puree it in the blender, and then move to the mixer, or do it all in the blender or food processor. I've seen recipes calling for any of the three.) Then add, mostly to taste until you reach a sweet and spreadable consistency. Place in freezer to set (or fridge if you have enough time).

For a raspberry chocolate cake, I also like to acquire fresh raspberries, and to make a raspberry syrup/glaze. This latter is very easy: in a sauce pan, heat raspberry jam with a little water until it dissolves, just before boiling (careful not to overheat and burn the sugar).

Once cakes are done, let cool 10 minutes then remove from pans and let cool completely. To assemble, place one cake face down on plate. Spread a thin layer of frosting, and cover with and sprinkle on a little glaze. Then place second layer on top, and frost sides and top. Cover top with and drizzle with glaze.

Serve, and amaze your friends, after they've commented on how moist and rich it is, by revealing its ingredients.

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Cookies

Snickerdoodles (V)

Preheat oven 350°F.

For 5 dozen cookies, in a medium bowl combine dry ingredients:
In a small bowl, combine and set aside outer coating:
In a large bowl, combine and stir until smooth wet ingredients:
Add half of dry to wet; stir to combine. By hand, work in remaining dry ingredients to form smooth ball of dough. Roll dough into 1-inch balls, place on large plate. Sprinkle with water and run hands over to moisten. In batches: shake off excess water and roll in cinnamon sugar to thoroughly coat all sides. PLace balls on ungreased cookie sheets with 1-inch spacing. Bake 350° for 8 minutes. Allow to cool 2 min before transfering to rack to cool completely.

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Peanut Butter Cookies (V)

Preheat oven 350°F.

For 6 dozen cookies, in a large bowl combine wet ingredients:
In a medium bowl, mix dry ingredients:
Add 3/4 dry to dry to wet, and, mixing by hand, keep adding dry until dough holds shpe. Do not over mix. Roll 2-Tbsp balls, press onto greased cookie sheet, and criss-cross with floured fork. Bake 10-15 minutes until golden brown.

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Chocolate-chip walnut cookies (V)

Preheat oven 350°F.

For 4 dozen cookies, in a large bowl combine:
Then add until you get to the right consistency:
Add and mix by hand:
Bake on ungreased pan roughly 10 minutes or until done.

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Oatmeal fruit cookies (V-able)

Preheat oven 350°F.

By hand or in standing mixer, cream together
Then add and beat for a minute or to help develop some structure (if you like your cookies a little chewy, which I do). Then add the rest of the dry ingredients:
When these are well-combined, fold in
Plop Tbsp-sized balls of dough on an ungreased cookie sheet with 2-inch spacing, and bake 11 minutes at 350°, or until edges have turned brown.

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About Grains

Whole grains, it bears repeating, are tasty and nutritious. They cook easily, but many take a fair amount of time. Whole grains are processed and sold dried: before eating, they must be boiled in (potentially salted or flavored) water. Most grains should be combined with a prescribed amount of water in a pot with a well-fitting lid, brought to a boil, and simmered covered for a prescribed amount of time. Length of time is determined by the grain; amount of water should be just enough to have almost entirely evaporated off / been soaked up in that amount of time. If your pot does not have a well-fitting lid, you'll need to use more water. Some cooks prefer to soak their grains overnight, as this reduces cooking time. If you use too much water, boil uncovered for the last few minutes to evaporate off the excess. Do not stir your grains unless you want to develop the starches into a mushy mix. Grains hold their heat covered exceedingly well. To make a better seel,

What follows is a first-approximation of how much water and for how long for different grains. For details on grains' nutrition and substitutions, I refer you to The Cook's Thesaurus. For other ideas about how to cook grains, see also this discussion. I will continually update this list as I try more grains.

Grain Type
 		Amount of Water per cup grain
 		Cooking Time
 		Notes
Barley, pearled
 2
 30 minutes
 Stays a little crunchy. For softer, cook longer, with more water.
Corn
 Enough
 10 minutes
 Corn can be steamed or boiled (or grilled or microwaved).
Millet
 2.5
 20 minutes
 Similar to polenta or hominy.
Oats, rolled
 1, and add more if starts to burn
 5 minutes, stirring (uncovered), or until desired consistency
 A traditional breakfast cereal, cooked as a mush.  I suggest cooking with raisins, a stick of cinnamon, and some maple syrup.  Rolled oats have been steamed once, so cooks fast.
Quinoa
 1.5
 10 minutes
 Very fast, high protein.  Rinsing first will reduce the slightly bitter flavor. Be sure to turn down to low: if kept on high, it will burn.
Rice, brown
 1.5
 20 minutes, plus 30 minutes with heat turned off
 Do not remove lid during the entire process.  Just turn off the heat and let the rice continue to cook in the steam in the pot.
Rice, white, Persian style
 2, or enough to cover by 2 inches
 10 minutes uncovered, then 45 minutes covered
 Boil rice, then drain, rinse in cold water, and drain again. Melt in a large saucepan 1 Tbsp butter per cup uncooked rice, and add rice and stir once to coat well.  Cover and steam over very low heat.  Bottom should be crispy and golden when done.
Spelt, berry
 2
 1 hour Spelt berry is much like wheat berry, but a little larger, and much more expensive. It's good, but not enough better to warrant buying it over wheat berry.
Wheat, berry
 2.5
 1 hour
 Good pasta substitute, especially with tomato sauce.  Given the time involved in cooking, many suggest soaking first, or slow-cooking overnight.  I haven't tried these techniques.
Wheat, bulgur
 .75
 7 minutes, plus 15 minutes with heat turned off
 Do not remove lid during the entire process.  Just turn off the heat and let the wheat continue to cook in the steam in the pot.  Bulgur has been steel-cut, soaked, and baked, so cooks fast.  For a tasty pilaf, sauté thin-sliced onion with two-inch pieces of vermicelli, then add bulgur.


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About Broccoli

I used to love "grape trees" when I was young. Broccoli, you see, is primarily a vehicle for fat, and we used to cook always in butter. But I never ate the stems: they were too tough, too vegetably.

Now, however, I have a much deeper appreciation of vegetables, and I particularly enjoy broccoli. Place at the bottom of the wok with some water, cover, and set on high for a few minutes to blanch with steam. Then add some olive oil, oregano, and garlic salt, and toss and sauté.

But I'm realizing that I much prefer the stems to the florets. Thinly sliced, the stems cook faster and get sweeter, whereas the florets just sponge up oil like nobody's business. I'm used to adding the stems first to tenderize, but really the florets need to go in first for the heat to penetrate all the way. Then the slices of stem, so that they can retain some crunch.

I can't abide raw broccoli. I demand that my broccoli be cooked just enough to lose all bitterness.

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About Dairy

I grew up drinking huge amounts of milk every day, and never had any trouble. Then, roughly sophomore year in college — when I was 19 going on 20 — I dramatically reduced my milk consumption, since I realized how much I enjoyed almond and soy milks (almond milk is very sweet, so a good way to start; I've since learned to prefer "original" flavored soy milk, because I don't actually really like the flavor of almonds). Since then, my dairy intake has been primarily butter and cheese, with small amounts of yogurt, cream, sour cream, etc. Butter, and most cheeses, are lactose-free.

Lactose intolerance, as you may know, is very common. For instance, my aunt is extremely lactose intolerant. And, more to the point, almost all mammals are. Lactose, the primary sugar in milk, is hard to digest, and toxic to many creatures. All mammals produce lactase, the enzyme needed to digest lactose into glucose, when they are young; almost all mammals stop producing lactase around the time that they're weened. Most humans, for instance, are genetically designed to stop producing lactase around age 4 — anthropological evidence from modern (and early twentieth century) hunter-gatherer communities suggests that most pre-modern humans breast-fed until the children were four years old.

Lactose tolerance, i.e. lactase persistence, is a genetic abnormality that evolved independently three times in different human populations, each around 10,000 years ago — archaeological evidence puts the early domestification of cattle around that time — in Northern-European, Eastern-African, and Western-African populations. It's rather odd, biologically speaking, to continue nursing throughout life, especially from cows, but it's healthy, provided it doesn't make you feel awful. (If lactose is not digested, it sits in the intestine and ferments.) People with primary ancestry hailing from other parts of the globe tend to be lactose intolerant: Asians are almost entirely lactose intolerant, lactase persistence declines in Europe as you move towards the Mediterranean, and, although studies are few, probably 20% to 40% of native North Americans produce lactase. Lactase persistence, a genetic abnormality, is a clear example of recent human biological evolution through natural selection.

India, of course, has a long tradition of dairy consumption, but lactase persistence never evolved in South Asia. This is not too surprising. In most of India, it's so hot that milk would not keep at all; India has instead developed terrific cheeses. And cheese is almost entirely lactose free.

Cheese is a fantastic way to preserve milk, because it retains the proteins and fat. Milk is a lactose-rich environment, and most bacteria do not like eating lactose. Some, though, prefer it; they tend to be very unhappy living in humans. So, by encouraging (the right) bacterial cultures to grow in milk, we create a food that will not get us sick: the lactose-tolerant bacteria keep out the microbes that could cause food-born illness.

Cheese is generally lactose-free for two reasons. One is that the bacterial cultures specifically eat the lactose, turning it into lactic acid. Severely lactose-intolerant people should avoid cheep cheeses that are made just from adding acid and rennet to milk. Acid reacts with the casein proteins, which in milk are dissolved in the water (cow's milk, by weight, 88% water, 3.5% fat, 3.5% proteins (primarily casein, but others too), 4.9% sugars (primarily lactose), and has trace amounts of vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients (e.g. a tenth of a percent each of calcium and phosphorus)), to make curds. The curds bring the fat out of suspension, but the sugars and whey proteins stay dissolved. The curds are then pressed into balls and the whey squeezed out through a cheesecloth when you make cheese — cheesemaking also often involves heating, cooling, and kneading. As such, the lactose is washed away. (Cottage cheese, though, is curds and whey.) Butter consists of just the milkfat.

Of course, folks who avoid milk because of a casein allergy must also avoid cheese: casein is the primary protein that holds cheese together, just as gluten (another common allergen) holds bread together. Many soy cheeses also contain milk-derived casein, although others use agar-agar or other hydrocolloids.

I think that I might start making cheese. Raw milk is available in California, although most cheeses are possible with pasteurized (but nut ultra-pasteurized) milk as well. I thought that my next project would be cakes, but I'm at the point that I can follow a cake recipe well and understand it, and I'm not sure I have the attention to reach my goal of being able to make (good) cakes without a recipe. In particular, I'm currently living in a family of two, and we don't go through cakes very quickly (my rather small banana cake lasted three days, breakfast and dessert). Besides, most of the flavor of a cake comes from additives, although there is skill involved in getting the texture and moistness right, not to mention to flavor combination. Cheese, on the other hand, is much closer to bread, which is my first passion. You have to order the cultures and rennet, but it's still cheaper than buying it at the supermarket, and would let me use only local organic milk. And it would justify owning a candy-and-meat thermometer, without having to learn to cook either.

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Last updated 10 December 2007.
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