Juicy Turnips

My neighbors cook many delicious things from Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone. I also own this book, but I suffered several disappointments from it a few years back, and so it's been gathering dust ever since, even though I loved the meal I ate at Greens in San Francisco. 

My neighbors, however, have scored success after success from the orange tome, so I dusted it off and looked for a turnip recipe. I bought 4 large beautiful turnips at the farmer's market and hadn't the faintest idea what to do with it, even though my great-grandmother hailed from the Ukraine. Madison's suggestion of butter and fresh herbs worked well, but I think the addition of bread crumbs turned out to be completely unnecessary. So I slimmed down the recipe, and let me tell you, these turnips tasted sweet and delicious and burst with savory juices. I would make this again any time.

4 medium to large turnips, peeled
2 Tablespoons or more unsalted butter
2-3 heaping Tablespoons fresh chopped dill or other herb such as rosemary or tarragon
2 Tablespoons snipped fresh chives
salt and pepper

1. Cube turnips about dice-size.
2. Meanwhile, bring a large pot of salted water to boil.
3. Add turnips and cook until tender.
4. Drain turnips.
5. Heat up butter in a fry pan until foamy.
6. Add turnips and cook on medium-high heat until slightly golden (about 8 minutes).
7. Add herbs and chives. Add salt and pepper to taste. Toss about and turn off heat. 
8. Tell everyone, "Here come the Turnips! OH BOY." Smack your lips.

Serves 4 to 8 people.

Baby

The birth of a Goofy Baby means that there will be far fewer Goofy posts for a month or two. Hang in there, Addicts!

How to Get Your Yeast to Rise When It's Cold

January: because it's winter cold and winter dry in my house, yesterday I found myself struggling with uncooperative challah dough. It would not rise. It wouldn't! And I couldn't find a naturally warm place anywhere in my house to coax that dough into submissiveness. But after combining two different tricks, I finally managed to get that darn dough to rise. True, the challah ended up slightly denser than usual, but it tasted no less delicious.

Trick 1: Use Your Tea Kettle

Not everyone owns a tea kettle. But if you do, this trick is the first thing you should try so that you can both moisten and heat your dough simultaneously. Your dough should be rising in a bowl covered with a damp towel. Fill your tea kettle with water, put it on the stove, and bring it to a shrieking boil. Now lower the heat to low or second-to-lowest. Put your covered bowl of dough next to the tea kettle and drape the damp cloth over BOTH the bowl AND the gently steaming tea kettle spout so that the steam enters the bowl of dough. Make sure nothing flammable is near a flame. Leave kettle and bowl together like that for an hour or more.

Trick 2: Use Your Oven

Some cookbooks say to stick your dough in the oven and turn the pilot light on. I have never had an oven with which I could do that. So instead, I braided my challah, placed them on a baking sheet, covered them with a very damp cloth and put them on the stove (above the oven). Then I turned on the oven to about 190ºF. The oven warmed the stove top but not too much. After an hour, the challah had risen quite decently. Then I turned the oven up to 375º, stuck the challah in, and baked it until perfect.

Trick 3: Use Your Bread Machine

I always have too much challah dough to fit into our bread machine, but if you're just making a single loaf pan worth of dough—and you own a bread machine—use your bread machine. Set it on the dough cycle. Not only will the bread machine stir and knead your dough for you, it will warm and rise your dough for you. Even in the cruelest winter months, your dough is guaranteed to rise! When the dough cycle ends, take the dough out, shape it how you like, preheat your oven, and bake the bread the normal way.

Trick 4: Wild Ideas

OK, this is just wild speculation on my part, but what if you stuck your bowl of dough on top of an electric blanket, heating pad, or hot water bottle? Maybe that would work! Or you could get into bed with your family or your pets and stick the dough bowl under the sheets so that your body heat could…

…never mind. Stick to the first three tricks.

Applesauce Cake

Some of you have been waiting for this recipe a LONG time. This is my Famous Applesauce Cake: my whole wheat, vegan, moist, delicious, disappears-in-minutes-at-any-party pretty round cake. Why is this cake so famous? Because it is the only cake I ever bake. It's laughably easy! And sorta healthy! This cake has served me well for over a decade, and if you check out the list below, you will see why that's so amazing.

Here is a list of cakes that I have come to realize I don't enjoy:

pound cake
coffee cake
carrot cake
lemon meringue cake
angel food cake
cheesecake
cake with raspberry filling
normal fluffy chocolate cake
any lemon cake
cupcakes
cakes with frosting (except for whip cream frosting)
devil's food cake
fruitcake
red velvet cake
whoopie pies


Despite the alarming length of that list, I still find plenty of cake to my liking. But obviously I'm very picky about my cake, something you wouldn't know if you had met me in Japan, where I made surreptitious weekly trips to the local Cake-Ya-San (so beautiful!) I don't like cake that's very sweet, fluffy, or airy, but that is the current style for so many American cakes.

So. I discovered this Applesauce Cake when I was 20, just learning to cook on my own and living in the shimmering cool beauty of the Pioneer Valley in Western Massachusetts, land of apple cider doughnuts—which in my opinion outshine all other U.S. doughnuts to an embarrassing degree. Knowing my 20-year old self, I probably copied down the recipe from some random cookbook in the Jones Library. When to my surprise and delight the recipe actually worked, I copied it into my journal, returned the book to the library, and didn't think much about it until the next time I was required to make a cake. Over the next decade I came to discover how rare and special this cake really is, and oft have I wondered which cookbook birthed it. If you ever find out, please tell me so I can give credit where credit is so obviously due.

Sarah's Extremely Famous Applesauce Cake

1/2 Cup canola oil
1 Cup sugar
1 1/2 Cup unsweetened applesauce
2 Cups whole wheat flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 350º.
Mix oil and sugar together. Add applesauce. Mix the dry ingredients together, and add them to the wet stuff. Beat until smooth. Grease (and flour if you want) a bundt pan. Or, if it's non-stick, don't bother. Pour batter in evenly and bake 45-50 minutes.

I know what you're bringing to your next pot-luck!

Vegetarian Baked Pasta Casserole, Better Than Almost Any Lasagna

To understand why I started making this dish, you need to know that I am 36 weeks pregnant. I am hungry all the time. ALL THE TIME. And thirsty. Luckily, it's Clementine season, and that tends to solve both problems at once. But before we bought the Clementines, Julia told me the same story over and over about how when she was in her last weeks of pregnancy, she got the nesting instinct and just started obsessively making lasagna over and over again and freezing it. Finally, after the baby was born, she and Doug enjoyed this fabulous lasagna for weeks.

I have heard this story at least 10 times, no joke. That lasagna must have some sort of symbolic meaning deep in Julia's pscyhe, like it's the Lasagna of Life or something.

Anyway, I entered the latest phase of my pregnancy, and Julia was about to visit, and inevitably my brain turned to lasagna. As in, "Going to have a baby soon, better make some lasagna." That is called conditioning, folks. But there were some problems. First, I do not enjoy meat, so I always make vegetarian lasagna. Second, over the last decade I have learned that actually I do not like making lasagna; it is a complete pain. I like eating lasagna, I like buying delicious, well-made vegetarian lasagna (so rare!), but the whole cooking process just annoys me no end.

So I invented this dish as a lasagna substitute. It is much easier to eat than lasagna because you don't have to worry about layers slip-sliding all over the place when you cut into it. It is also easier to put together, and if you like tasty vegetables as much as I do, it is much easier to fill with different vegetables than lasagna is. In short, I think this dish I invented is BETTER THAN LASAGNA. Except for the Lasagna of Life that Julia made—obviously that tasted better than any other food in the entire world. Too bad it is gone forever.

Baked Pasta Casserole

Serves 8-12

1 lb. whole wheat bow ties (farfalle)
1 15 ounce can tomato sauce
dried basil and dried oregano
1 onion, chopped
handful of frozen pearl onions (optional)
2 handfuls frozen chopped peppers (optional—or cut up peppers yourself)
several handful fresh spinach leaves
1 Cup or more grated cheddar cheese
1 Cup or more freshly grated Parmigiano or Pecorino Romano

Broccoli Version: 3 to 6 stalks broccoli, chopped really small and boiled or steamed until tender
Mushroom Version: 48-ounces any mushrooms, washed, stemmed, chopped into small chunks, and sautéed until tender

Directions:
1. Cook pasta in a large pot until tender. Drain and return to pot.
2. Meanwhile, in a large fry pan sauté chopped onion five minutes.
3. Add tomato sauce, healthy shakes of spices, pearl onions, and peppers. Cook a few more minutes. You can add sautéed mushrooms to the sauce at any point if there’s room in the fry pan. Turn off heat.
4. Preheat oven to 375º F.
5. Mix sauce, cooked broccoli or mushrooms, and several handfuls spinach into the cooked pasta. Stir to evenly distribute ingredients.
6. Take out a 9x13 glass Pyrex pan. Pour 1 half of the pasta mixture into the pan in an even layer.
7. Sprinkle the cheddar cheese lightly and evenly on top.
8. Pour the 2nd half of the pasta mixture on top of the cheddar cheese layer.
9. Evenly sprinkle the Parmigiano or Pecorino Romano over the top.
10. Bake in the oven 10-15 minutes or until the cheese on top has melted, bubbled, or browned.
11. Either serve at once or let cool on stove, cover with aluminum foil, and stick in the refrigerator. Lasts about a week in the refrigerator. Obviously, if you're PREGNANT, you should freeze it.

Baby Bok Choy

I'm probably the worst bok choy cook on the planet. While I love bok choy at good Chinese restaurants, my own efforts invariably result in watery or over-cooked bok choy…usually both. After a while I figgered that me and the Big Bok Choy have irreconcilable differences, so I gave up trying.

Then George returned from Costco with a bale of baby bok choy.  I told him flat out, "I cannot cook bok choy." But he was all, No Sweat, and he cooked it himself. Apparently baby bok choy are way way easier to make tasty than adult bok choy. George's batch tasted so delicious that among the two of us and Doug and Julia we polished off every last choylet. And Bonus: bok choy has twice as much calcium as any other vegetable with a lot of calcium (I think maybe kale takes 2nd place).

Baby Bok Choy
several baby bok choy, washed, and halved lengthwise
juice of 1/2 lemon
vegetable oil

1. Heat up some oil to medium high. Cook the baby bok choy cut side down until browned, around 5 minutes.
2. Flip 'em over. Turn down the heat. Add the lemon juice to the pan, and cook until they become all soft and translucent.

If you serve these beauties to the right sort of guests, they will be super impressed and not realize at all that you put almost as much effort into these bok choy as you put into microwaving a bowl of peas. Good for you, you slickster!

Choose Your Own Adventure Cinnamon Rolls/ Sticky Buns

The Goofy Family has gone on an intense cooking spree this week, and tonight will be no exception: there will be latkes.

But a few mornings ago, there were cinnamon rolls. Or sticky buns. Or cinnamon buns. Or whatever they are called. Basically, we rolled out a rectangle of yeasted dough, sprinkled cinnamon all over it, rolled the dough into a log, cut it into ten round spirals, let them rise and expand, baked them, and glazed them until they were sticky and mildly sweet. Then we devoured them. Whatever that food is called, that is what we made.  You may comment with your opinion about the proper name in the comments section below.

Maybe you are rolling your eyes and yawning, saying to yourself, Oh No, Self, Not Another Cinnamon Roll Recipe. Yes, I admit one can find endless iterations of this recipe. On the King Arthur Flour website alone I encountered roughly 14 different versions. But what you didn't know about this recipe is that for two days I focused with laser-like intensity on unearthing the absolute best cinnamon rolls recipe in the entire world, one that I could leave in the refrigerator overnight and then immediately upon waking the next morning stick in the oven for the perfect hot decadent breakfast of the century, so as to gently rouse the other denizens with tempting aromas. 

Having never eaten fresh, home-baked cinnamon rolls in my life, I don't know where this obsession came from. But I ran with it and now you will benefit from my research. Because these cinnamon rolls did not disappoint me, with my fevered passion, nor did they disappoint George, a consummate baker and extremely picky eater. They were perfect. They were perfect the first morning I baked them, they were perfect several hours later at room temperature, and they were perfect two days later (today) when I reheated the uneaten rolls. These cinnamon rolls flexibly adapt to your cinnamon-roll-eating needs.

Please check out the original recipe plus the extremely helpful commentary on the King Arthur Flour Website. And do not, under any circumstances, sprinkle sugar into the filling because sugar is hygroscopic and will dry out your cinnamon buns in a matter of hours.

Enjoy.

A note about substitutions:

• We used a bread machine to mix and rise the dough. You can do this by hand the traditional way or use a stand-mixer.
• We used plain soy milk (Silk brand) but you can use milk.
• We substituted 1/2 Cup of white whole wheat flour, which required us to add about 3 Tablespoons more soy milk. This imbued the cinnamon rolls with a slight bit more chewiness and staying power. But if you want the rolls to basically evaporate in your mouth, use only all-purpose flour, and you probably won't require the extra milk.
• We used 3 Tablespoons fresh baked potato innards (I baked a fork-pricked russet potato in the microwave for 5 minutes until tender)*, but if you have 2 Tablespoons potato flour or 1/4 Cup instant potato flakes on hand, you may use that instead.

Ultimate Cinnamon Rolls
Makes 10-16 rolls, depending on how you roll and cut them.

Ingredients:
DOUGH
3 Cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 Cup white whole wheat flour
2 teaspoons instant/ bread machine/ rapid-rise yeast
3 Tablespoons cooked potato*
3 Tablespoons granulated sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
4 Tablespoons softened butter
2/3 Cup lukewarm water
1/2 Cup lukewarm soy milk + roughly 3 Tablespoons any temperature

FILLING
2 teaspoons cinnamon, preferably Vietnamese cinnamon

TOPPING
2 Tablespoons melted butter

GLAZE
1 Cup confectioner's sugar
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
2 - 3 Tablespoons soy milk

Directions:

1. In a bread machine, combine all the dough ingredients except the extra soy milk. Set to the dough cycle. See note on substitutions above if you don't have a bread machine. You want the dough soft and supple, so add the extra tablespoons of soy milk to get it to the exact right consistency.
2. Allow dough to rise for the rest of the dough cycle, or in a greased container for 60 to 90 minutes, until doubled in bulk.
3. Gently punch the dough. Transfer it to a work surface covered in wax paper and lightly greased. 
4. Roll the dough out to roughly a 20 x 12 inch rectangle. Don't worry if it's not exact.
5. Using a small sieve or tea strainer, sprinkle the 2 teaspoons of cinnamon evenly over the surface of the dough.
6. Starting with the long side, roll the dough in a log (don't roll too tightly). Using a sharp knife, mark the log at roughly 1 1/2 inch intervals. With the same sharp knife, slice the dough into buns. You will get roughly 10 to 16 rolls.
7. Lightly grease 2 or 3 round pans. Cake pans and pie pans do well here. Put the buns into the pans, making sure that they are loosely rolled and that they have at least 1 inch of space between each roll and its neighbor. This space is necessary so that when the rolls expand, they expand horizontally rather than vertically from the center…unless you want cinnamon towers.
8. Cover the pans with damp towels and allow to rise 60 to 90 minutes until puffy and lookin' good. FOR OVERNIGHT ROLLS: at this point wrap the pans tightly in plastic wrap and stick them in the refrigerator. You will bake them the next morning for 23 to 28 minutes until golden brown. FOR IMMEDIATE ROLLS: You will bake them now for 20 to 23 minutes until golden brown.
9. Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Bake rolls according to the adventure you have chosen in step #8 above.
10. Immediately brush all the hot rolls with the 2 Tablespoons of melted butter.
11. TO EAT ALL THE ROLLS IMMEDIATELY OR SAME DAY: Mix together the glaze and brush the glaze over all the hot buns. Serve at once. Wrap leftovers in plastic wrap and store at room temperature.
12. TO EAT HALF THE ROLLS TODAY AND HALF SOME OTHER TIME: Mix together half the glaze and brush the glaze over half the rolls. Serve those immediately. Allow the other rolls to cool completely on a rack. Store them in air-tight containers at room temperature for up to a few days later. When you want hot rolls again, preheat the oven to 350ºF. Put the rolls in pans, tent them with aluminum foil, and bake for 10 minutes. Mix together the other half of the glaze. When the rolls come out, immediately brush them with the glaze. Serve immediately.

Chanukah 2011

For Chanukah we're going to make the exact same thing as last year.
TRADITION, TRADITION. …… TRADITION! /fiddler-on-the-roof
The same latkes.
The same applesauce.
The same grated beet and carrot salad.
We're not awesome enough to make our own sour cream.

The same silverware.
The same chanukiyot.
The same candles. Okay, we conceded the basic nature of candles and bought new candles.


And we will use a new sparkly blue tablecloth from Julia; it's okay that it's new because it displays the Jewish colors.

Hazelnut Cocoa

Finals week is the most stressful time of year in this house. Everybody goes a little out of their gourd. I find this drink particularly helpful at the end of an adrenaline-filled day of studying, grading, and writing to help me calm down and get the #!$% to sleep.

Hazelnut Cocoa
Serves 1 or 2 or 3, depending on thirst

Ingredients:
a few tablespoons of Nutella or good-quality hazelnut chocolate butter
1 Cup soy milk or milk

Directions:
Seriously, do you need directions for this? Are you as frazzled as I am?

1. Heat soy milk on medium heat on the stove because it just doesn't taste or smell good coming out of the microwave. Add the hazelnut chocolate butter.
2. Stir so it doesn't stick.
3. When the cocoa puffs up and begins to foam out of the pot, immediately turn off the heat and pour into mugs. 

This might be good served with a peppermint candy cane as a stir stick, but so far I've only tried that technique with normal hot chocolate. Does peppermint go with hazelnuts? You decide.

Broccoli Fried Rice

"Broccoli" is such a weird word. Where the hell did it come from? Oh, Italian. Thanks, Wikipedia! Anyway, broccoli's a weird plant too. It looks like a bunch of trees stuck together; that's why the Italian word is plural. No wonder most children don't want to eat it--it belongs in the uncanny valley of foods.

I remember the first time I really enjoyed broccoli. In sixth grade everyone had to take Home Economics for about six weeks. At that time my cooking could best be described as hilarious. Home Ec straightened me out. I developed a lot of my food preferences during those six brief weeks, including which apples or cheeses I liked the most, that I hate cooking with raw animals, that cheese cake has way too much cream cheese in it, that I hate meringue and marzipan and rocky road pizza, and that I LOVE LOVE LOVE stir-fries (and soy sauce).

My stir-fry had crispy stalks of broccoli, water chestnuts, and baby corn and it was Totally Freaking Awesome. I was so proud of myself as I munched the miraculous goodness all the way home. If you have children who are vegetable averse, teach them to make a nice Chinese stir-fry and watch them poke around at all the curious little treasures they find in their tasty food.

This dish is in memory of you, Home Ec.

Broccoli Fried Rice
Serves 4 or 5.

1 head of broccoli, washed
12 fresh shiitake mushrooms or 8 oz. of any old mushroom, washed, destemmed, and sliced
2 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
1 egg, beaten (optional)
1 Cup or so cold-leftover rice
soy sauce (GF optional)
salt
pepper
juice of 1 lime

Directions:

1.  Slice the head of broccoli in half so that the florets have a much shorter stem. Separate the florets with your knife. Slice them lengthwise into quarters. Meanwhile, slice off the tough outer skin of the stem half. Cut the stem into 2-inch matchsticks quartered lengthwise.
2. Heat up a medium-large or large frypan with some vegetable oil. Pour in all the broccoli. Sauté about 8 minutes on medium heat or until cooked through and delightfully crisp. Remove from frypan and set aside in a bowl.
3. Add the sliced mushrooms. Cook on medium heat until they release their juices. Season with soy sauce. Push to the side of the pan.
4. Add the beaten egg and keep bothering it in the for about 40 seconds until it becomes not-quite-set scrambled eggs. Push to another side of the pan.
5. Add rice.  If it remains clumped together and too dry, add up to 1/2 Cup of water. Break it up with your spatula-turner. When it seems like a good texture and not too wet, season with soy sauce. 
6. Add the garlic. Return the broccoli to the pan. Heat through and mix everything together for about 2 minutes. Salt and pepper to taste.
7. Remove from heat. Squeeze lime juice over everything. Serve piping hot and watch those little imps scarf it down.