Pumpkin Treats: Pancakes and Milkshakes

I have been called "pumpkin" by the maternal parent for much of my life, but pumpkins didn't become my favorite food until I moved to Japan. In Japanese markets they sell "kabocha," which are medium dark green round ridged squashes with bright orange insides. I could buy halves of them, just the right amount for a two-person dinner. The flesh is sweet and firm, not stringy like the flesh of many American squashes. My first sampling of its tender succulence was kabocha tempura in a restaurant—heaven. For Thanksgiving George made kabocha soup. I've also learned to simmer kabocha chunks in sweetened water (this is no peasant food; they serve it boiled to accompany sushi bombs at Bozu in NYC). When I returned to the United States I regarded squashkind with new respect and interest. Pumpkin cans found a permanent home in my pantry.

If—Heaven help you—you've been following this blog for long, you may have noticed quite a lot of pumpkin- or squash-themed foods. That trend is sure to continue. Generally I get a craving for a sort of food, then I think to myself, "how much better this food would be if orange and pumpkin-flavored!" I research in my cookbooks, find nothing, and then with ruthless focus hunt the perfect recipe down on the Internet. I proceed to alter this perfect recipe to suit my prejudices, and voìla, you get to read about another pumpkin food.

I hope you didn't make any of those boring New Year's dieting resolutions because these recipes ain't gonna help you none.  To be fair to my creations, though, these pumpkin pancakes really kept me energized yesterday through nursing and hiking and writing and…um…napping. I've realized that the pancakes contain a lot of ingredients that provide sustained nutriton: pumpkin, whole wheat, soymilk, and egg. So you could actually do worse than start your morning with a beta-carotein and protein splurge.

Pumpkin Spice Pancakes

adapted from comfortofcooking.blogspot.com

Ingredients

1 Cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1/4 Cup whole wheat flour
1 1/2 Tbsp. brown sugar (sift it if it's lumpy)
1/4 tsp. salt
3/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
three gratings of fresh whole nutmeg (or 1/4 tsp. ground)
Dash of ground ginger
Dash of ground cloves
1/2 Cup pumpkin purée
1 large egg, beaten
2 Tablespoons vegetable oil
1 1/8 to 1 1/4 Cup plain soy milk or cow milk
optional: chopped nuts

Directions:

1. In a medium bowl whisk together flours, sugar, salt, and spices. 
2. In a smaller bowl, whisk together pumpkin, egg, oil, and milk. 
3. Combine all ingredients, and add more milk to achieve a nice consistency in your batter. Not too thick, not too runny. Come on, you've made pancakes before! Add nuts now if you want.
4. Heat a greased fry pan and cook those pancakes, using standard pancake technique.

Makes three Enormous Pancakes or about 6 standard-sized pancakes. Serves 2 to 3 people, depending on the size of the pancake-sized holes in your stomachs.

The neighborhood children give this two thumbs up. You may notice that you use the exact same spices as in the pancakes. Coincidence?

Pumpkin Milkshake

adapted from seriouseats.com

1 1/2 Cups vanilla ice cream
1/4 cup soy milk or cow milk
1/2 Cup pumpkin purée
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
three gratings fresh nutmeg or 1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves

Put everything in a blender. Let the blender do its thang.
Then use a spoon.
Serves 2.

Greens and Quinoa Pie

I made this pie first thing after the major December holidays had finished up. For my recipe I adapted an old Myra Kornfeld recipe in the March 2010 Vegetarian Times feature on Passover.* Passover recipes in magazines usually fail to follow the rigorous dietary requirements of Ashkenazi Jews in one way or another, but I suspect that with a name like "Kornfeld," Myra figured out the rules the natural way. Anyway, this pie is ingenious because quinoa is technically NOT a grain—and technicality is everything in Jewish law. Quinoa, related to spinach and chard, has the added advantage of a complete set of amino acids and as a bonus, also lacks gluten!

Don't place this pie side by side with your grandmother's brisket because you will break the laws of kashrut. This pie features two kinds of cheese, so use the pie for a dairy Passover or any dairy meal during Passover, like on the fourth night.  But like I said, it's December right now and the recipe works really well for those of you who want something light and refreshing and festive.


*The other Kornfeld Passover recipes included a Chocolate Mousse Cake made with almond flour, Garlicky Leek and Artichoke Soup with basil pesto, and Tunisian Carrot Salad with radishes and olives. You might be able to look them up at the Vegetarian Times website.

Greens and Quinoa Pie

1/2 Cup white (not red) quinoa
1 large bunch escarole, curly endive, or chicory (about 1 1/4 lb.)
1 head Romaine lettuce
2 medium onions
4 to 5 scallions, washed
1/4 Cup fresh dill, washed
1/4 Cup (1 ounce) feta cheese, preferably marinated
1/4 Cup (1 ounce) Swiss-type cheese, grated
3 eggs
olive oil
salt

Special equipment: a 9-inch pie pan

1. Thoroughly rinse off the saponin (bitter coating) on the quinoa in several changes of water. Drain. Combine with 1 Cup of water and 1/4 teaspoon salt in a small saucepan. Cover, bring to a boil, reduce heat to medium low, and simmer, covered, 15 minutes. Remove from heat. Alternately, combine the water, quinoa, and salt in a rice cooker and set for the regular cycle. Fluff with the rice paddle.
2. Meanwhile, remove damaged outer leaves and core from escarole, chop roughly, and wash and dry. Set aside.
3. Repeat Step 2 with Romaine lettuce.
4. Heat a large pot over medium heat. Add escarole and cook up to 5 minutes, or until mostly wilted, stirring frequently. Add Romaine and wilt that too. Transfer the greens to a strainer and push out excess moisture with a wooden spoon. Allow greens to continue draining while you complete additional steps.
5. Preheat oven to 350ºF. Peel and thinly slice onions. Heat some olive oil in a frypan over medium-high heat. Sauté onions about 10 minutes or until softened and browning. Allow to cool 
6. Chop your drained, wilted greens until they are in quite small pieces. Return them to the large pot (without heat). Add quinoa. Thinly slice scallions and add. Chop up dill and add. Crumble the feta cheese and add. Add grated Swiss cheese. Add cooled onions. Mix thoroughly all together.
7. Lightly beat the eggs and add to the pot. Mix again. 
8. Pour 1 Tablespoon oil into the pie pan. Place pan in oven for 5 minutes. Remove and swirl oil to coat the bottom. 
9. Put the quinoa-greens mixture into the pie pan and smooth the top. Bake 20 minutes.
10. Remove pie, drizzle with 1 Tablespoon olive oil, and bake another 20 to 30 minutes, until the pie is golden brown.
11. Eat hot or eat cold or eat from the pot nine days old.

Two Kinds of Pasta with Beans

My friends, I apologize for how long I have gone between posts. I am doubling down on my dissertation prospectus, and meanwhile the Goofy baby has been battling an ear infection and my life is a whirlwind of insanity. Thank goodness I am not a snob about food, and I have been managing to get enough nutrition by eating these two cheap, quick dishes. And actually, they're good enough to serve to company that stops by unexpectedly.

Fragrant Rigatoni with Saucy Pinto Beans

1 lb. rigatoni or other textured pasta
1 Tablespoon olive oil
2 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
1 15 ounce can tomato sauce
1 4 ounce jar artichoke hearts, drained, rinsed, and chopped
dried basil
dried oregano
1 15 ounce can pinto beans, drained and rinsed
4-6 ounces cheddar cheese (or to taste), grated or cubed
2 scallions, sliced


1. Cook pasta until al dente.
2. In a sauce pot, sauté garlic in olive oil until golden and fragrant.
3. Add tomato sauce, and add basil and oregano to taste.
4. Heat slowly until bubbly.
5. Stir in pinto beans, and reheat until bubbly again.
6. Mix sauce with pasta and cheese. Add scallions right before serving.


Elegant Penne with Cannellini Beans

1 lb. penne
1 15 ounce can cannellini or Great Northern or any white bean, drained and rinsed
2 Tablespoons mayonnaise
1 1/2 Tablespoons olive oil
1 clove garlic, peeled and chopped
1 large bunch spinach
salt
6 ounces Swiss cheese, grated or cubed


1. Cook penne until toothy.
2. Mix with mayonnaise, beans, and Swiss cheese.
3. Meanwhile, saute garlic plus some salt in olive oil until golden and fragrant. Add spinach and keep stirring until all is wilted and covered in garlic oil. Toss spinach with pasta mixture and serve.

Perfect Scrambled Eggs

The Goofy Family felt quite unwell one morning last week, so I offered to make eggs. For eggs to work effective magic, they have to taste, look, and feel like sunshine with a side of toast. So I looked up  Science Food Man Harold McGee's recommendation for how to make "perfect" scrambled eggs, by which he means tender and moist eggs, safely cooked-through, and with even, fluffy curds. This culmination of eggdom was a lofty goal I had yet to attain. So I followed McGee's instructions. The result? Perfect scrambled eggs, just as McGee had described. George was delighted. I, on the other hand, had to keep reminding myself that eggs could be moist without being underdone. Soon, I am sure, I will become accustomed to the taste of greatness.

Perfect Scrambled Eggs

Mix the raw egg innards with cream or milk or somesuch. Add some salt and pepper.
Heat up a fry pan on medium low heat. Add butter. When the butter has just started bubbling, pour in the eggs. Cook the eggs on medium low heat, constantly stirring the eggs and scraping the bottom. When the eggs are about ten seconds away from being completely set, scoop them onto the plate (they will continue to set on their own). Serve immediately with nice toast.

Tangy Herbed Beans

I've been seeking a quick way to freshen up cans o' beans. My pantry overflows each week with cans o' beans, and I find myself occasionally—okay, often—bored at the thought of MORE BEANS. And worse, I don't really like beans cooked in pressure cookers or slow cookers because they don't allow me enough control over the tenderness. So I'm stuck with home-boiled beans or salty canned beans (or those Eden-brand canned beans preserved with seaweed, which taste odd in loads of recipes!).

I am still sad that Western cooks haven't jumped onto the idea of sweet bean treats, which in Japan was my absolute favorite way to eat both beans and desserts.

Luckily, I read a Vegetarian Times recipe for Southern California tacos invented by the winner of some show called The Cupcake Wars of all things (!), and then I read the amazon.com reviews of her recent cookbook, which commented that the chef asked for unnecessary amounts of oil. Keeping this plus the chef's obvious love for sweet desserts in mind, I pared down the recipe to about a fourth of its size and removed the oil, halved the sweetness, laughed at the request for cactus juice, and ignored the call for mushrooms once I realized that my box of mushrooms was hosting a fuzzy white fungus too. The result? A super quick, easy, fat-free, gluten-free (deep breath) delicious, tangy take on canned beans that I can't wait to make again.

If you are one of those people with the gene that makes cilantro taste like soap, this recipe is not for you. Although…would you enjoy cilantro bubble bath? Just curious!

Tangy Herbed Beans

1 15 ounce can of either black beans or pinto beans, drained and rinsed

1 Cup of cilantro, washed

1/2 Cup Italian (flat-leaf) parsley, washed

1/4 Cup lime juice

1 Tablespoon honey

4 cloves garlic, peeled

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

a few good grinds of black pepper

1. Add all ingredients except for the beans to a blender or food processor until the herbs are in tiny tiny bits. 
2. Heat a fry pan. Add the beans and half of the blender sauce. Sauté 3 to 5 minutes until heated through, less wet, and the flavors have slightly muted.
3. Serve beans warm with extra sauce (all of it, if you dare!) spooned on top. Yum diddle dee dum!

How to Reduce Food Waste, and an Easy Autumn Supper

After reading some good advice on how to reduce food waste, I now wash and/or prepare almost all my vegetables as soon as I get back from the market. Because of this one change,  I waste almost zero fresh food and eat more vegetables. Plus, I find that simple meals like this one come together much more quickly and with less expenditure of my waning end-of-day energy. 

Some people think vegetables will spoil more quickly if you wash them days in advance. Well, I keep all my washed vegetables in airtight plastic or glass snap-ware in the refrigerator, and they don't seem to spoil any more quickly than dirty vegetables. The only vegetables I don't wash in advance are mushrooms because I fear their turning slimy. 

This autumn meal for 2 is very simple, attractive, easy, and quick. Plus it's comfort food!

Meal Components:

1 stone fruit like peach or plum, washed and sliced

1 can vegetarian baked beans, warmed on stove or in microwave

1 recipe of Joy of Cooking's buttermilk cornbread

1 bunch collards, stemmed, torn into bite-sized pieces, and washed

The cornbread mix comes together in about 3 minutes and bakes for 25 minutes. The collards should simmer in salted water for 12 to 25 minutes, depending on your preference. Drain the collards and press out the excess water with the back of a wooden spoon.

On each plate arrange one slice of cornbread, a heap of collards, and a fan of fruit slices. Add a small pretty bowl to the side of each plate with some warm beans.

Enjoy with iced tea or a mug of cider.  Offer seconds of everything.

Skillet Pizza

"Kid tested, mother approved!" 

How many times have I heard that slogan? So annoying. (Thanks a lot, 1978 Kix cereal ads.) And I don't believe that slogan for a second. I don't believe there exists a single cooked or processed food that the children in my neighborhood like AND I consider healthy.

So when 11-year-old Hannia told me she liked my skillet pizza—as long as she picked off the zucchini first—I knew she liked it because skillet pizza is unhealthy. Is it as unhealthy as most of the pizza you can buy around here (Costco, Papa John's, freezer aisle pizza)? No. But it's pizza. So will your kids or the Kid-In-You enjoy this recipe? Definitely. But try not to make it a weekly staple.

This recipe makes two small pizzas. You can just make one pizza, refrigerate half the dough in a ziplock bag, and make the second pizza the next day. I did it, and I quite liked the results.

Some people don't like ricotta. Fine, just add a bit more mozzarella. Other people don't like zucchini on pizza. Feel free to cook some mushrooms or open a jar of olives or whatever and add that instead. Some people don't like vegetarian pizza. Well, Buddy, the lemur's out back, he's all yours, but I'm warning you: he's quite a fighter.

Thanks to Vegetarian Times, Mark Bittman, George, and Hannia for their input.

Skillet Pizza

Special Equipment: 
food processor
An 8 or 10" cast iron frypan, or equivalent oven-safe fry pan
A rolling pin
An oven
A large wooden or bamboo cutting board


Dough:
1 1/2 Cups bread flour
1 Cup whole wheat flour
1/2 Cup stone-ground cornmeal
2 teaspoons instant, bread machine, or rapid rise yeast (same things)
2 teaspoons good quality coarse salt (kosher or sea salt)
3 Tablespoons olive oil, divided
1 to 1 1/2 Cups water

Toppings:
2 tsp. vegetable or canola oil per pizza
a small jar of prepared refrigerated pesto or low-sodium, high-quality tomato pasta sauce
less than 1 Cup grated low-moisture, part-skim mozzarella
a few Tablespoons low-fat ricotta cheese
half of 1 peeled zucchini, sliced into 1/4 inch rounds

Directions:

1. Combine flour, yeast, and salt in a food processor. Turn the machine on. Add most of the water and 2 Tablespoons of oil through the tube while the machine whirrrs.
2. Process about 30 seconds until the dough wads into a ball around the blade. It should be slightly sticky. If it seems too wet, add a little more flour. If it seems too dry, add a little more water. Then process until it's all copacetic.
3. Dump dough into a large plastic or metal bowl. With well-floured hands, knead a few times until the dough comes together into a smooth ball. Pour 1 Tablespoon olive oil over it and turn the dough until it's evenly covered with oil. Cover the bowl with a damp cloth and let sit in a warm, moist location to rise for 1 to 2 hours, until doubled in size.
4. Preheat the oven to 500ºF and set the oven rack in the lower third of the oven.
5. Divide the dough in half. On a lightly floured board, roll out 1 ball of dough evenly until it is roughly the size of your fry pan. 
6. Heat the vegetable oil on high heat in the fry pan. When it's sizzling hot put the dough in. Cook 3 minutes until brown and crisp on the bottom. Turn off the heat and, using two spatulas, flip the dough over in the fry pan. 
7. Spread the nicely browned dough with pesto or tomato sauce. Sprinkle mozzarella evenly over the surface. Top with dollops of ricotta spaced apart and place zucchini slices around the ricotta. 
8. Bake in the oven for 8 to 10 minutes until the cheese is melted and bubbly. Drizzle pesto/sauce over the zucchini slices. Cut the pizza into 4 wedges and serve hot hot hot!
9. Repeat with the other half of the dough.

Serves 4 to 8 people, depending on a bunch of factors.

Moong Bean Tomato Soup

Doug and I eat a lot of bean soups. After all, why not? Bean soups answer every need: cheap, healthy, filling, and comforting in the winter. Also, practically no one is allergic to them. The only problem is that bean soups bore the palate after a while, especially if you eat them for dinner every single night. Doug varies his bean soups by adding canned pumpkin or Italian sausage.  I like to revolve through a variety of beans. I make a tamarind-sour red lentil soup, a lemony split pea soup, a curried brown lentil soup, an eye-watering kimchi tofu and rice soup, and most recently a cozy moong bean soup.

The Indian people display a special genius for the legume family. I've never eaten a dal I didn't like. So when you grown bored with American-style beans, head over to an Indian grocer. Check out the rainbow of dals, both split and whole, that line the shelves. You may feel inspired to start making Indian bean soups. (Indian beans are still quite cheap.) If you don't live near an Indian grocer, order some Indian beans online. Dried beans travel well.
Some places online to buy Indian beans:
Indian Foods Co.
I Shop Indian
Indian Blend
Desi 911
Patel Brothers
Desi Mart

This particular soup was inspired by three fancier recipes created by Mark Bittman, who is not Indian and therefore tends to use more accessible ingredients in his recipes. I was able to make the entire soup in an hour. It won't take as long if you use split moong beans. I used whole. Whole moong beans are olive green in color with a tiny white stripe (see above).

Serves 4 to 8, depending on who's counting

Moong Bean Tomato Soup

1 Cup whole moong beans (dried)
1 large or 2 medium tomatoes, washed
6 Cups or 48 fluid ounces of vegetable broth (I use Imagine No-Chicken)
salt and pepper

Equipment: 1 medium pot, 1 small pot

1. Wash the moong beans, being careful to pick through and make sure there aren't any small stones. 
2. Put moong beans and the vegetable broth in the medium pot. Heat on medium-high heat until boiling. Lower to a bare simmer, cover tightly, and cook 1 hour.
3. Meanwhile, fill the small pot with water. Bring to a boil. 
4. Cut a small X in the bottom of the tomato. Blanch it in the boiling water by immersing it for 30 to 60 seconds. Take it out, let it cool a few minutes, and then peel off the skin with your fingers. Chop the tomato into small pieces.
5. Add the tomato to the moong bean soup—it doesn't matter where in the cooking process it is.
6. When the beans finish cooking, have a sip. Don't double-dip the spoon! Add salt and pepper to taste. Enjoy hot.

Optional additions: fresh-squeezed lemon juice, cayenne

Alternatives to Soda and Juice

Apparently, drinking sweet beverages ruins your teeth, makes you obese, and gifts you with diabetes. With any scientific discovery that a certain foodstuff or drinkstuff hastens death, you have to decide, "Am I content to live 10 years less, as long as I fill those 60 to 70 years with delicious glasses of iced guava and pineapple juices?" The jury is still out on that one, for me.

People are wracking their brains trying to find healthy alternatives to sweet beverages, especially to serve at school lunches. Well, I have compiled a list of delicious un-sweet drinks for you, a list that does NOT include milk, since a lot of people suffer from milk allergies or lactose intolerance. Also, I have heard rumblings that milk may not be as good for you as the dairy industry promises it is. Who woulda thunk it? I used to drink that stuff by the gallon.

The recipe for almost every beverage on this list requires you to steep some of the ingredient in a pitcher of filtered—i.e., tasty—water, possibly overnight in the refrigerator or over-day by a sunny window.

Lime Water
Every beer ad I see these days is for "XYZ with lime." Lime is in. But those tiny limey wedges may not do the trick. I've discovered that one of those jumbo limes will produced enough juice for four tall refreshing glasses of cold lime water. Squeeze some of half a lime into the bottom of a glass. Fill the glass with cold filtered water. Serve immediately, or chill and serve in a hipster glass so as to feel with it. Pucker-licious.

Cucumber Water
You can pay more than $100 to go to a fancy pants spa that will serve you this drink in the waiting room…or you can make it at home by picking a cuke from your dinky backyard garden. Peel the cucumber, slice it lengthwise, use the tip of a spoon to scoop out and discard the seeds, and then slice thickly. Add cold water, refrigerate for 1 hour and you have cucumber water.

Barley Tea
Translate from the Japanese, "mugi cha." Every casual restaurant in Japan (and Korea too, I hear) serves iced barley tea as a complimentary service in the summer. Because barley is a type of grain, barley tea has a soothing effect on the stomach, and the mild flavor doesn't interfere with any kind of food you might eat. You can buy bags of Barley Tea at an East Asian grocer, or you can buy a bunch of whole barley. With tea bags, you steep a few in cold water in the refrigerator overnight and voìla, barley tea. With the whole barley, it's better to boil and simmer the barley in water, then strain. I love both hot and cold barley tea. Plus, barley tea is probably the cheapest kind of tea in the world.

Sun Tea
Somehow iced sun tea always tastes a little better than the boiled version. Buy some loose leaf tea (green, brown rice green tea, black tea, hojicha, kukicha, rooibos, pu-erh, white tea, or oolong). Pack it into a tea ball or fold it into 2 ocha packs, sold as pretty much any tea shop I've ever patronized. Put the packed tea into a tall glass pitcher with a lid. Fill with purified water and close the lid. Leave the glass pitcher outside or in a sunny window for several hours until the tea has taken on a deep hue. Then refrigerate the tea and serve it cold over ice with optional lemon or orange slices.

Seltzer or Club Soda
Let's say you just can't resist that delicious 100% juice despite health concerns. You can simultaneously dilute it and fancy it up by filling a glass 1/3 with juice and 2/3 with seltzer or club soda. You can squeeze fresh lemon or lime juice in. Or you can just enjoy seltzer plain, or over ice. It feels nice in the mouth and might settle your stomach or aid in a belching contest.

Ginger Tea or Green Ginger Tea
This tea will invigorate you. I learned how to make this from a Korean friend. You wash a fresh piece of ginger, slice it into a few thin segments, then pour boiling water over it and steep a few minutes. Ginger goes really well with banana bread or muffins. If plain ginger tea tastes a bit harsh for you, you can steep only one or two pieces of ginger with two bags of green tea. Just make sure not to steep the green tea until it's bitter.

Got any favorite unsweet beverages of your own? I'd love to hear about it.

Hot Beans

While on our three-week tour of the good ol' U.S. of A., I managed to sneak in a breakfast at Rick Bayless's Tortas Frontera. In the airport! I ate an egg and rajas torta with sides of smoky salsa verde and guacamole and a glass of lime juice. Crikey, it all tasted amazing!

So when I returned home, I felt very "F@*k yeah, Mexican food!" Ahem. So to speak. Then I invented this super super spicy dish, which I am sure Rick Bayless wouldn't even look at, he's so much cooler than I

May I take the liberty of suggesting three different approaches to my beans? First, you can use it as an extremely spicy, less fatty alternative to refried beans. Spread it on tortilla chips, top with sour cream. Or you can enjoy a simple bowl o' beans by heating it up with a cube or two cheese in the microwave. Finally, you may enjoy it as a spoonable snack. I find that two plain spoonfuls will kick my brain into gear, water all my ducts, and keep me going for at least an hour if not two.

Hot Beans by a Hot Mama (literally, I have all the fans and two air conditioners on)

2 cans pinto beans, drained and rinsed
1 3 ounce can chilies in adobo sauce (find at your local Mexican grocer)
1 bell pepper, sliced up and sautéed in oil until tender.


Set aside 1 cup of the pinto beans. Put the rest of the beans, the can of chilies, and the cooked pepper together in a blender or food processor. Blend until smooth. You may have to add a little water. Mix the reserved beans in by hand.

Makes a lot of servings, depending on your heat tolerance