Chef Tova's Gourmet Vegetarian

Sue Kaufman's Banana Chocolate Chip Bread

2006-03-19T13:45:00.000-08:00

When I was in high school, I was friends with a couple of girls whose mom was an amazing cook. She had half a dozen Babcock peach trees, and every summer when they were in their full glory, Sue Kaufman's kitchen was filled with wonderful pies, crisps, and preserves made from the Babcock's. There were also loads of them to take home and enjoy fresh. If you haven't had Babcock's, then you are missing out on one of life's great joys. They are only in season for a few weeks of the year, and have a delicate, golden white, juicy, perfumy, and incredibly sweet meat. They will spoil you for yellow peaches (I won't go near them).

But Sue was also famous for her banana chocolate chip bread. I have kept the recipe throughout the years, as it is a sure-fire winner, but I have modified it slightly to make it healthier. I will include Sue's version, plus my modified version of the recipe. Beware: if you make this and no one else is around, you may not be able to stop eating.

1 cup mashed ripe bananas (2-3)
1 1/4 cup sugar
1/4 lb. butter
2 eggs
2 cups flour
1/2 cup nuts (I like pecans)
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. vanilla
a small container sour cream
1 large package chocolate chips

Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs and vanilla. Then add banana. Mix dry ingredients together. Alternate adding dry ingredients and sour cream. Fold in the nuts and chips, and bake in a bundt pan for one hour at 350.

To make this dairy free, you can substitute canola oil for the butter. I also use only 1 cup white flour (part regular, part pastry flour), and for the other cup I use some combination of whole wheat, spelt and kamut flours (dont' use more than 1/4 cup of kamut flour). This really improves the recipe. I also recommend using organic ingredients for better flavor and health. Enjoy!

vegetarian thanksgiving

2005-12-04T17:16:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving was great this year, since almost all the dishes were vegetarian and so am I. I made a version of my stuffed squash, which I am going to try to reproduce here for all who are interested; however, I was not working from a written recipe, so if yours doesn't turn out exactly like mine, I'm sorry!

Cut and de-seed 10 baby dumpling squashes and cook them until they are just tender in a 350 degree oven, face down (I usually spread a thin layer of sesame oil on each one, but you can also just spray the cookie sheet). In the meantime, sautee one minced or chopped sweet (preferably Vidalia)onion in some olive oil. While that's cooking on low-medium heat, chop one shallot and throw that in. After the onions are transluscent, add in 3-4 large cloves of garlic (minced or put through a press), plus 1/2 Tbsp. coriander powder and 1/2 Tbsp. fenugreek powder. Let that cook for a minute or so and then throw in a whole bunch of wild mushrooms (porcini, shitake and oyster), roughly chopped. I add in a little vegetable broth to add flavor while they are cooking. Don't overcook these, and then take them off the heat and add salt and pepper to taste. Put this in a bowl and let cool. Add 1 container cottage cheese (not the tiny size), and a handful of chopped, toasted pecans (not chopped too finely). Add about a teaspoon of toasted sesame oil. Then remove the squashes from the oven (make sure you don't overcook them, because the skin will get too weak to hold the stuffing), and carefully scrape out the insides (being careful not to break the skin). Mash that and add it to the other mixture. Again, salt and pepper to taste and fill the squash shells. Top with a couple pecans and a sprinkling of fresh, chopped oregano and heat in oven for 20 minutes before serving.

Enjoy!

Nuts...The Most Fattening Healthy Food of All

2005-07-19T14:17:00.000-07:00

I've been trying to cut down on my sugar intake, so my fat intake is definitely on the upswing. The best form of fat to me comes from nuts. The only nuts I don't really like--except in butter form--are peanuts.

But here are some yummy things you can do with nuts:

Soba Noodles with almond-miso sauce and fresh veggies (adapted from Mollie Katzen's Still Life with Menu)
-Make a sauce by mixing together 6 tablespoons almond butter, 4 tablespoons miso (any kind), and 1 and a half cups boiling water (mix in only a little at first, so you can make a paste with the first two ingredients). Then you can take that sauce and put it over soba noodles with steamed or lightly sauteed veggies (and tofu, if you like), drizzle a bit of sesame oil, garnish with chopped scallions and fresh cilantro, and you've got yourself a delicious meal.

-Go crazy with coconut oil. Supposedly this oil is a special kind of fat that doesn't store itself as fat but instead turns to energy in your body. That, at least, is what the back of the expensive container of it says! I also read that it's a good antimicrobial and good, in general, for your body--as long as you don't overdose on it. A raw foods chef whom I met recently at a hot springs gave me the following recipe for a raw foods shake that tasted delicious and was both filling and very healthy:

Genevieve's Breakfast Drink
a few dates
a teaspoon of Nutiva brand coconut oil/butter
a banana
a teaspoon of Goji berries
a teaspoon of Maca (some kind of healthy powder--to be honest, I'm not sure exactly what it is, but she said it was good for male potency...)
a teaspoon of spirulina powder
a 1/4 cup water
ice

You might also add other kinds of tropical fruit and/or a dash of flax oil for good measure.

Go nutty!

Zuni Stew

2005-07-14T13:33:00.000-07:00

Okay, it's been forever since I've posted, but I wanted to give a recipe for my favorite summer meal. It's my favorite because (aside from being very tasty), all the veggies can be gotten fresh at the farmer's market and most of them are originally from the southwest, where I live (if you can count California as part of the southwest).

Zuni Stew
olive oil
1 onion
1 dried ancho chile, soaked in hot water and chopped finely
3 large cloves garlic
1 tsp. coriander
1 tsp. fenugreek
1 tsp. dried oregano
1/2 tsp. dried marjoram
1/2 to 1 tsp. cumin
1/2 tsp. chile powder
1/3 cup amaranth
2 Japanese eggplants, cubed
2 small zuccini, cubed
1 ear fresh corn, kernels removed
2-3 fresh tomatoes
1 can cooked black beans
2-3 cups veggie stock/broth
1/4 to 1/2 cup chopped cilantro
juice of 1/2 lime or more, to taste
salt and pepper to taste

Boil water and soak the ancho chile. Chop and sautee the onion in heated olive oil in large pot. Sprinkle a little salt and let cook over low to medium-low heat while you are chopping the veggies and preparing the spices. Chop the ancho chile, mix all the spices together in a little bowl, and then add the garlic to the same bowl(run it through a press or chop finely) as well as the chopped chile. In the meantime, continue chopping veggies until they are all ready. Turn up the heat to medium, add contents from spice bowl and let cook for a minute or two. Then add in the amaranth and eggplant, make sure you get them all covered with the spice mixture, then add zuccini, tomatoes, corn, and black beans. Add broth, cover, and cook until most of the water is soaked up. In the meantime, clean up, chop the cilantro, prepare the lime, and after about 45 minutes have passed, turn off the heat and add cilantro, lime, salt and pepper to taste.

Mmmm, so delicious!

Pie-Faced

2005-02-05T01:02:00.000-08:00

What does that mean, anyway? Does it mean I am really drunk? Or does it mean that I have a face shaped like a pie? I don't think I have a face shaped like a pie, but I do know that I make a mean pie crust. I got the basic recipe from Maida Heatter (I hope I spelled her name correctly), who has a brilliant cookbook about pies and tarts. One time I made the mile-high apricot pie from her cookbook, with fresh apricots from a tree that grew in my backyard in Long Beach. You cut the apricots in half and coated each one by hand with a butter-brown sugar-spice mixture, layering the whole thing until it rose high in the air, and then gently layering a top crust over the whole thing. Divine. Tonight I was out at the old Long Beach place, because some friends live there, and was very sad to find out that the building had been sold and the avocado, loquat, plum, and apricot trees had all been chopped down (because this decreased the insurance payments/risk of fire on the property?). Why do people cut down trees when they buy new houses? I cannot understand this. When I was in Texas recently, and was visiting the farm where my husband grew up, his mom was pointing out to me how the beavers had eaten through the trunks of most of the old fruit trees--especially the pear trees, and particularly not the plums (too bitter, I imagine)--so the former orchard was in ruins. Now this is an acceptable explanation for the disappearance of fruit trees, though sad.

Anyway, the key to pie crust, as most people know, is that one does not want to handle it overmuch. This is why if you have one, it's best to use a Cuisinart (some might balk at it, but I can make a crust in less than 30 seconds in the Cuisinart, and it's better than the ones I have made by hand). For one crust, you throw in 1 1/3 cups flour, a large pinch of salt, a pinch of sugar (for sweet pies), 3 3/4 tbsp. butter (organic is preferred), 3 3/4 cup shortening (again, organic is good), and some spice (a few grates of nutmeg for sweet pies, a pinch of fenugreek for savory ones), and blend in the Cuisinart for 30 seconds or so. Add a few tablespoons of ice cold water to bind things, gather the dough into a ball, wrap in plastic wrap, flatten into a round, and throw it in the freezer for a half hour while you preheat the oven and start on the filling. Preheat to 400 degrees, take out the pie crust, roll it out, pop it in the pie dish, and bake it for 12 minutes (if you remember, pop it with a fork while it's cooking, because it will puff up). Then pour in the filling, reduce the heat to 350 and cook for another 35 or 40 minutes or so (with the crumb topping, recipe to follow). For the filling, I like to use a few cups of fresh or frozen fruit, a 1/3 cup of cornstarch, 3/4 cup sugar, depending on how sweet the fruit is, a tsp. of lemon peel and a tablespoon of lemon juice (you can mix the cornstarch in here before adding it), a teaspoon of vanilla extract, and some spices (clove, cinnamon, etc.). Cherry pie can also use a tablespoon of molasses and clove as the spice. An excellent crumb topping can be made with 1/2 cup butter, 1/3 cup oats, 1/3 cup chopped pecans or walnuts, cinnamon, vanilla, a pinch of sugar, and 1/3 cup brown sugar. You may need to add a bit more butter or Canola oil to make it moist enough--or a few drops of water if you have had enough butter/oil. The key is for the mixture to be crumbly, sort of in little tiny balls of dough, and then to pour this all over the topping (which you have dumped into the partially baked pie crust).

Cook until the pie filling has set and the crust is golden. This pie recipe is alwasy a hit.

Easy Mock Chinese Chicken Salad, and a good idea for cooking tofu

2005-02-02T08:35:00.000-08:00

I got this recipe from Lisa Fox, a friend of the family. It is always a huge hit at family parties--so much so that even though Lisa brings a massive bowl of the stuff, it always disappears and you can find people digging around the bottom for leftovers. The tofu is my contribution. I often cook tofu in the style described, with the delicious Soy Vay Teriyaki Sauce. The key to success with this is making sure that the tofu gets golden brown on two sides; don't rush it or it won't be as good. In fact, one of my main staples, for an easy dinner, is to get a bag of already-cleaned spinach, dump it in a bowl, add strips of red peppers, crumbled goat or feta cheese, slivered almonds, cubed cucumber, and the tofu, as described above. I let the tofu cook as I combine the rest of the stuff in the bowl. It's always delicious, and good with a simple vinagrette (olive oil, vinegar, Dijon mustard, a drop of honey, a pinch of salt and freshly ground pepper).

Salad
2-3 packs ramen noodles (throw away spice envelope)
1 small can mandarin oranges
1 small bag slivered almonds
2 bags broccoli slaw
½ cup sunflower seeds
1 bunch chopped scallions
1 package extra firm tofu (not in box).
1/3 cup Soy Vay Veri Teriyaki Sauce

Dressing
¾ cup vegetable oil
¼ cup rice wine vinegar
½ cup sugar
3 tbsp soy sauce

Marinate noodles in dressing 2 hours before serving so noodles get soft. Cube tofu and cook over medium-high heat with Teriyaki Sauce until browned (I like to cook the tofu on one side for about ten minutes, and then turn each piece over with a spatula, so each piece is golden brown on both sides. Add more sauce as needed while cooking). For an even “meatier” option, the day before you plan to serve the salad, julienne the tofu in one inch long pieces and freeze it. Then, while the noodles are marinating, defrost the tofu with hot water, press the water out of it by laying it on a flat surface and putting a heavy object on top—do this carefully, as you don’t want to damage the pieces of tofu—and then cook the tofu up as described above.

Add the rest of the ingredients to the salad. Throw the tofu over the top and serve.

Gingko Nuts

2005-02-01T15:26:00.000-08:00

I was reading an interesting entry about walnuts on the Accidental Hedonist, and thought I would post an entry on gingko nuts, which I tried for the first time recently. (By the way, I adore nuts. I know this must be partly due to the fact that they provide an easy source of protein (unlike many other protein-sources for vegetarians), but lately I have had to cut back, as the protein comes with its share of fat. I increased my nut intake a while back when I went on the South Beach Diet. On any particular afternoon, I could be found chomping on my daily allotment of 30 pistachio nuts or handful of almonds. But the diet became too time-consuming to keep up with, and I abandoned it, but not the nuts. How could I abandon a food whose praises have been sung so voluminously? So after I went off the diet, one could still find bags of nuts--pistachios, almonds, cashews, and pine nuts--neatly lined up on my kitchen counter and I could be found throwing them on salads, into my morning yogurt, including them in a stir-fry, or just eating them plain. So one day I decided to "lighten up" on my use of the nuts...

But back to gingko. Everyone knows that gingko increases blood supply to the brain, and I've taken the substance as a pill and as a tea. But I was at a Japanese restaurant the other night, and discovered that gingko nuts were on the menu. They arrived at our table too hot to eat--they were still in the shell, because they had been freshly roasted. We were instructed to peel them, dip them in salt, and eat. The texture of the nuts was very odd--something like a lychee nut, and clear just like a lychee. They were delicious, and I recommend them. My food dictionary tells me that the nut comes from the center of the inedible fruit of the maidenhair tree (from China).

The restaurant, called Ryo Sushi, is at the corner of Highland and Hollywood, in a little strip mall. I found out about it from Chowhound, my favorite food website of all. You can do city-specific searches for any type of restaurant or food that you want, with opinions and debates from people who are really interested in food and don't have any commercial motives.

Mollie's Blog

2005-02-01T15:14:00.000-08:00

Check out my friend Mollie's new blog/website (you can follow the link on the left). In the archives, you can read an interesting story about chickens and chicken heads.

Vegetarian Lasagne

2005-01-30T23:55:00.000-08:00

I made a vegetarian lasagne last night, which one of my Texas friends claimed "tasted better than lasagne with meat." This was a huge complement, since this is a guy who usually eats one big meal a day, consisting of a large steak (which he cooks up at about 2 in the morning). Later in the morning, after he's had some sleep, he drinks a cup of vinegar. I kid you not. This guy must have a stomach of steel (I know you are wondering why I am bragging about a compliment on my cooking coming from Vinegar-Meat Man, but I'll take 'em where I can get 'em). At least he cooks the meat. I have a friend who used to be on the "Neanderthal diet," which consisted mainly of raw beef. I know it's good to be in touch with one's roots and all, but isn't that going a bit far? Another person I know eats her meat "after it's been walked through a warm kitchen."

Okay, okay, enough of this meat talk. Isn't this supposed to be a vegetarian blog? The recipe below is from my homemade cookbook. The one I made yesterday was much simpler; instead of the zuccini mixture, I sliced eggplants, spread some garlicky olive oil over them, sprinkled with thyme and oregano, and cooked them at 400 degrees for 15 minutes. Then I layered these into the lasagne instead of the other veggies, but I still used the mushrooms (in the tomato sauce). I also didn't use the pesto, but if you make the recipe below, spices and all, I can guarantee that people will like it (if they know what's good for them). The Indonesian catsup can be hard to find, but it's amazing, and a dash will brighten almost any stir-fried dish or sauce.

Spectacular Vegetarian Lasagna
(time consuming, but worth the effort--and can be simplified, as mentioned above)

Tomato Sauce
2 onions, chopped (preferably Vidalia or other sweet onion)
oil and butter
pinch brown sugar
1 large tin crushed tomatoes
1 tsp. Katsup manis (Indonesian soy sauce), if you have it
1 tsp. Fenugreek
1 tsp. Coriander
1 tsp. Sweet paprika
½ tsp. Dried thyme
1 tsp. Dried rosemary
1 tsp. Dried oregano
crushed red pepper flakes and salt, to taste

Vegetables
6 large white mushrooms
4 zucchinis, cubed
one bay leaf
one head scallion tops
2 cloves garlic
½ tsp. Sambal oelek or sambal badjak (Indonesian red pepper paste), optional
½ tsp. Mustard powder
½ tsp. Onion powder

Pesto (optional)
In blender, mix ¼ cup olive oil and ¼ cup walnut oil with 3 cloves garlic. Add ¼ cup parmesan, 2-3 Tbsp. pine nuts, and 2 cups fresh basil.

lasagne noodles (preferably no-bake noodles, ideally fresh ones)
1 ½ to 2 cups fresh ricotta
1 log goat cheese (or 4 ounces sheep’s cheese if you prefer)
1/3 cup parmesan or pecorino
½ package frozen chopped spinach, microwaved for three minutes, or 1 bunch fresh spinach (preferably)
fresh basil

1.Sautee spinach in a little olive oil and butter for a few minutes (until wilted). Season with salt and pepper and set aside.
2.Sautee 2 cups onion in butter, oil, a pinch of salt and a large pinch of sugar until translucent. Add tomatoes, katsup manis, fenugreek, coriander, thyme, rosemary, oregano, crushed red peppers and salt. Let simmer while you prepare other ingredients.
3.Cook mushrooms, zucchinis and garlic in olive oil with bay leaf, scallions, sambal, mustard powder, onion powder, and then add salt and pepper to taste.
4.Make pesto and add half cup to zucchini mixture.
5.Mix ricotta into cooled spinach.
6.Put a thin layer of tomato sauce in a casserole. Layer fresh lasagne noodles, all of zucchini mixture, goat cheese, ½ of tomato sauce, more noodles, spinach mixture, parmesan or pecorino, more tomato sauce, etc. until you are out of ingredients. Top with fresh basil. Bake covered at 350 for 30 minutes and uncovered for 15 more minutes or until browned and bubbly.

Scottish whiskey, Chicken-Fried Deer, and some thoughts about the British

2005-01-28T14:58:00.000-08:00

Well, I’m staying out in the Texas countryside, and one of the favorite pastimes here is, as you might expect, drinking. Last night my friends and I were drinking some Scottish single-malt scotch, and someone surprised us with a guide to scotch. Looking at the book, I learned a lot about how a connoisseur might discuss these matters, but I have to admit that the adjectives rather reminded me of, shall we say, the “language of love.” This is not quite the language of sex, and not quite the language of romance, but somewhere in between. So, for instance, you might describe a scotch as oily, or fudgey (or both), but it might also smell like the sea air, or evoke the “salt spray” of that romantic seaside. At any rate, the scotch was good, and as the crowd grew tipsy, I overheard someone bandying about what is now my favorite phrase of the week: “Imperialism-a-go-go.”

This morning I was asking my host if the path that winds through the woods behind the house was walkable, and found out that not only was it open, but that there was a herd of about 15 deer that could be spotted quite regularly out there. I’ve never eaten deer, but I was wondering what it tastes like, and asked my host. She explained that it was all right, but very strongly flavored, and told me about the first time she ever ate the stuff. She was teaching piano to a young ten-year old girl whose father was a big hunter. Now this man had really wanted to have boys, but ended up instead with two girls, whom he had trained to be hunters (and presumably in other boyish things). One day this girl showed up with a pile of tenderized deer, and explained to her teacher that if she were to just pull out her frying pan and her flour, these deer steaks would be a fine substitute for the old Texas favorite, chicken-fried steak.

Well, we got onto other topics and as I sliced up a piece of homemade bread, my host brought out some orange marmalade. She explained to me that traditional English marmalade is made out of Seville oranges, which are so bitter that they cannot really be eaten; but leave it to the practical British, who are always eager to make something out of nothing. They found these inedible Spanish oranges, which the Spanish thought well enough to leave alone, dumped in a whole load of sugar, which even then barely disguised the bitterness, and called it marmalade. This got me thinking about other feats of the British, and I was reminded of the history of genever (dutch gin).

Genever was originally invented by a Dutch professor, Franciscus de la Boe, who was looking for a preventitive for kidney disease that people would actually take (the main flavoring agent in genever and gin are juniper berries, which are very good for you, though I wonder how healthy they can be when accompanied by fermented barley, but go figure). In the late 17th century, when William of Orange became King of England, he began taxing brandy made in Catholic countries, and encouraged the importation of genever from Holland to England, to benefit his fellow Protestants. Gin really took off in England, and soon practically the entire population was flailing about the streets of London in a collective fit of drunkenness (it is estimated, actually, that ¼ of the households in London were producing Gin in about 1720). And when the stuff was finally banned by the Parliament in 1736, the result, of course, was illegal production, and the stuff could then be found under such names as Cuckold’s Comfort and My Lady’s Eye Water. The British really know how to make the best out of a difficult situation, don’t they?

But so do the Texans…so the next time you’re down in Bush country, why not help yourself to a healthy serving of chicken-fried deer?

Egg-sistential Eggs

2005-01-27T10:01:00.000-08:00

In my view, my grandmother makes the best eggs ever. Well, she doesn't make them anymore because she went blind and had to stop cooking. She actually continued to cook after she lost her sight, but one day there was a huge fire in the kitchen and my father forbade her from cooking anymore. That's all right, because the stuff she cooked after she went blind was often misshapen and sometimes had too much salt or an oddly unpleasant aftertaste, as though my grandma reached for the wrong ingredient. (My grandma does, however, attend braille classes, and reads and writes in it--something she started to do in her late 80s!).

So I once asked my grandma what she did to make her eggs so good. The answer was very simple. Lots of butter. Well, that makes sense. But the funny part of that is that when she was still hosting weekly Sunday brunches, my parents were always asking for egg beaters, which my grandma claimed to be serving (Not). I once saw the "egg beater" mixture, and it was nothing but pure eggs!

I eat eggs almost every morning for breakfast, and here's my secret (and it doesn't include a lot of butter--though butter never hurts). First I sautee a sweet onion. I like to peel the onion, cut it in half, and lay each half flat down, then slice thinly all the way through. This makes the onion pieces long and stringy, so they don't get lost in the fray. I heat up the butter or spray oil, throw in the onions with a pinch of salt, and cook the onions for as long as it takes to cut up the veggies. Cubed zuccini is always good, and whatever else is lying around. In the meantime, I beat the eggs (organic or free range really does make a difference) and crumble in some feta cheese or grate in some other kind of cheese, add sea salt and freshly ground pepper, and fresh herbs if I have them. Right before adding them to the pan, I turn up the heat to medium-high, add a bit of butter, and dump in the eggs. The trick, in my view, is to let them sit for four or five minutes without doing a thing. Don't touch! Then, once they are all browned at the bottom, take a spatula and flip the egg pancake in parts (it will break up, but still stay in pancake sized pieces). Alternately, if you want an omelette, don't flip but turn on the broiler, pop the frying pan under it for five minutes, and voila--an Italian omelette. And if you're in the mood, you can always spice things up with garlic and oregano, or add different kinds of ingredients--black olives and sun-dried tomatoes are a favorite of mine.

Thoughts about Turmeric

2005-01-24T21:55:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking about turmeric lately. This all started when I was driving across the country in the summertime, and as I was checking into a motel, I noticed the smell of delicious Indian food coming out from behind the clerk's office (the office was connected to her home). I asked what she had made, and she began to rhapsodize on the benefits of turmeric. She insisted that I eat some, and it was truly delicious. I had never eaten fresh turmeric root before, but quickly discovered that even touching it will turn your fingers completely orange. The motel clerk had very orange fingers. I had a lot of trouble getting the color off of mine (we had no silverware, and were eating the stuff with our "living utensils"). Anyway, it turns out that turmeric (the clerk told me) is very good for cleaning out your blood. She said almost everyone in India ate it a lot, kind of like a national sport or something! I was impressed, made a mental note to start eating more turmeric, and then kinda forgot about it. Then the other night, I was at my favorite local Indian take-out, India Sweets and Spices, and the clerk there started talking about turmeric, out of the blue, about how good it was for your blood, and how most people in India ate it, and how almost nobody in India had alzheimer's becuase of it. Was he insinuating something? He told me I could mix the ground spice into a glass of milk with honey (mmmm?). But it's true that I don't want to lose my mind. So I bought a big bag of the stuff. Have I eaten it? Not yet.

Here's what my food dictionary says about the stuff (The Food Lover's Companion, which is a great kitchen book to have around)...I'm going to summarize though.
This stuff has been used in cooking since 600 BC!
It's related to ginger, native to the "Orient" (look out, you orientalists).
In Biblical times (surely we are no longer in these, though some unmentionable assholes love to draw on the imagery for their evil pursuits), they made perfume out of it (read: "exotic fragrance"--go crazy, you orientalists).
Oh, but did you know this? Turmeric is a main ingredient in mustard and that's what they use to make American mustard so bright yellow (but what about those yellow mustard flowers I used to mash up and try to eat on my childhood walks through the wilds of the San Fernando Valley? I'm confused).

So, looking for a tasty, very orange, and cheap way to keep your blood clean and your memory intact?
Go Turmeric!

Loafmania

2005-01-23T20:33:00.000-08:00

People often complain that vegetarian food is too mushy. Well, that's often the case, and tonight for dinner I made a very mushy but very delicious meal, which is very easy to do on your own. It's the vegetarian "loaf." This is ideal, because you can use most anything in your fridge to make it, but it is still very satisfying.

Sautee an onion in olive oil. Wait till it's transluscent, then add some garlic and a shallot if you have one lying around, plus a jalapeno or other kind of pepper for more flavor. Then dice up some veggies (I used zucchini), drop in a can of cooked beans, some diced or crumbled tofu or veggie meat, and some spices (tonight I used thyme, coriander, fenugreek and chipotle peppers). Then mix together some eggs or egg whites, any kind of cheese, some kind of yummy liquid (I used tofu sour cream, but you can use buttermilk, or broth if you want to ease up on the dairy), and some ground up almonds or other kind of nuts. I realize I'm not giving exact measurements; the key is to mix a couple of eggs with about a cup of mixed liquids and 1/3 cup ground nuts, and as many veggies and beans as you like. Mix the egg combo with the veggie mix, add salt and pepper to taste, and bake at 350 for 45 minutes or so. This is really delish. You can also add in some cooked grains if you want something heartier.

Enjoy!