Easter, etc.

Cookies!

 

Inquiring minds who want to know: oatmeal date nut cookies, which are already vegan, can also be made gluten free. They’re just a little crunchier and snappier, and who minds that?!

I baked those tasty things for a church choir potluck. For Easter! It being June as I write this and Easter, of course, not being a June holiday, let me clarify. I celebrate Orthodox Easter (the Easter of the Orthodox Christian church- if you have Greek, Russian, Lebanese, Romanian, etc. friends it may be theirs, too) and it’s on a different calendar than Catholic and Protestant churches. So it was a LOT later than American Easter. (Though, er, still awhile ago).

So anyway this Easter potluck was so we could practice the complicated and difficult music. Except only five people showed up (and two of us were related). So it was not all that successful, except the food part!

Making the food was actually a fun challenge since for food to be Lent-appropriate, it should be vegan (I don’t eat totally vegan during Lent because of calcium fears, but many in my church do, and the food served at the church itself should be supportive of the church’s official policy, obvi).

It also had to be gluten free (or should be, out of kindness) because both our church’s choir director John and his wife Betty have Celiac disease.

Also, Betty for charming reasons best understood by her had come up to me in the middle of church one Sunday and handed me this pad thai sauce container:

I appreciated her gift, and figured I might as well use it on something I could share with her.

So I cooked up some rice noodles, made some tofu:

threw in some veggies:

And voila, pad thai. Ish. No final picture- it was ugly. But good!

And we also brought, of course, dessert.

But the really exciting dessert was a week later, on Easter itself. Something I have allllllllllways wanted to make? Olive oil cake!

I discovered this scrumptious-sounding if ever so slightly vague recipe for olive oil cake and mostly followed it (subbing a mix of white flour, whole wheat, and semolina for the plain flour) then consulted this overly complicated but methodologically clear olive oil cake for timing (which caused me to let the cake rise for two hours before baking it) and anyway it was great!

Heat some olive oil

Infuse with lemon

 

Plus anise seeds (mm)

 

The recipe wasn’t clear whether or not you were supposed to strain out the seeds, and I thought a few might be nice to help retain the flavor, so I casually poured the oil mixture in the batter, leaving behind the lemon and approximately half the seeds in the pot.

Batter was SUCCULENT! Could’ve eaten the whole thing with a spoon. So dense and creamy.

Baked that off- it didn’t rise much but it was real tasty! For the finished cake, I improvised a glaze which involved orange marmalade thinned with water- not a lot more complicated than that.

This ended up REALLY good.

 

Meanwhile, right before Easter, we received a VERY generous Easter basket from a very sweet family friend. It contained this GI-NORMOUS sweet, almond-paste-studded Easter bread.

   

And the Easter celebration itself was at my sister’s godparents’ home. They had gotten a lot of it catered. The spread was quite beautiful.

 

They had requested that all the lamb be cooked well done (…) I snuck into the kitchen with the caterers and begged them to save a medium rare bit for me. They obliged, and were very very nice :)

My dinner plate:

Blessedly medium-rare lamb with scads of tzaziki (definitely eyes>stomach on that one, but Steve was nearby so all was good), grilled vegetables (done by caterers- EXCELLENT! Perfectly cooked!), spinach and cheese pies, roasted potatoes that were wonderful, and salad. And wine! Gave up booze for Lent. Such a worthwhile thing to do. I’m no lush, but I only want to drink when I feel like drinking, not when everyone around me is. It was a useful exercise in mindfulness.

Spent much of the meal lounging by their pool, looking at their e-normous house!

 

Believe me when I say this barely scratched the surface on dessert. Phase 1 was enjoyed poolside.

Gazillions of berries, koulourakia (traditional Greek cookies), some of my olive oil cake, one of Steve’s oatmeal-toffee cookies.

bonus easter

Step 1: Be born into, or convert to, Orthodox Christianity. Check.

Step 2: Befriend any other kind of Christian, who celebrate Easter on a different calendar, and thus (most years) a different day.

Step 3: Bonus Easter!

I got Bonus Easter before Actual Easter (which will be, I have no doubt, an epic post of its own.)

My heathen boyfriend requested that I accompany him to Mass! (I’m not at all implying that Catholics are heathens. Just that my boyfriend is a heathen nominal Catholic).

So to Mass we went. But first pancakes, obvi.

 

I made this yogurt-packed, egg-free pancake recipe I'd made before, subbing plain Greek yogurt (that quite honestly was a bit sour and only appropriate for baking applications), and adding some banana slices. Though they caramelized a bit messily and detached from the pancakes (oops), they scraped off okay and added wonderful sweetness.

It had been TOO LONG since pancake Sunday!

 

Just for kicks (and apparently, at a point in the morning when the natural light became a TOTALLY DIFFERENT COLOR in my kitchen) we sprinkled salty peanuts on top.

Excellent, excellent idea. Monkey pancakes, I’d call ‘em.

 

So off to church we went and it was very nice and I seriously love going to other peoples’ houses of worship. Takes me back to my anthropology days! (I did an, if I do say so myself, excellent project on evangelical Christians at a sort-of-megachurch in Boston. And loved loved loved interviewing everyone!)

Then, surprise, Steve and I were hungry.

To amend: Very hungry. And when Steve is hungry, serious, serious food gets made.

We decided we should go to HMart.

Because HMart is where one can buy MEGA CONDIMENTS. (Kinda like my boyfriend’s mega biceps in the background :D)

Just to give context (and show the other condiments. Also the lighter fluid, which we did not eat.)

 

So what was this meal that involved mega-Sriracha?

Well.

It started when Steve said, “It’s a beautiful day. Let’s grill up some fish!”. Since he and I are both pretty committed to sustainable seafood, that meant a trek out to Whole Foods, where we picked up some pretty boss-lookin’ (local!) black sea bass, whole. I had eaten and adored grilled whole fish, prepared very simply, in Greece, and was confident I could do it.

Then Steve went, “Ooh! Ooh! When I was studying abroad in Costa Rica, we ate rice and beans and plantains all the time. Let’s make those!”

Sure!

I found a recipe for grilled plantains which sounded healthful and delicious and also convenient since we were firin’ up the grill anyway!

 

You sliver them up like that, then glaze ‘em with a mixture of melted butter (I used oil cause I’m lazy and worried about burning cause I was on a charcoal, not gas, grill, with less good temperature control) as well as some brown sugar and cayenne, mm.

Steve said the bowl I selected to make the glaze mixture perfectly evoked the colors of cooking in Costa Rica. So there you go.

You started grilling them skin down, where they did most of their cooking.

Then flipped and finished for a few minutes on the other side where yes, they sort of charred. But tasted great!

Okay; fish, rice, beans, plantains!

“Oh, also, let’s make dumplings!”

Steve is such a dork. And can eat more than anyone I have ever met.

So millions of veggies were assembled. Green onion, carrot, mushroom, ginger, garlic, and in I think a stroke of brilliance, BEAN SPROUTS! They were GREAT in there.

 

And at Whole Foods we also got some US shrimp.

The mixture was bee-yoo-ti-ful. Lotsa colors!

 

So the plantains had finished up, and we had great lookin’ coals. I copied a trick I picked up from Cook’s Illustrated: put a disposable aluminum pan over the part of the grill where you want to cook the fish. This will concentrate the heat in that area and burn off any drippings from the last time you grilled that might remain on the grate, giving you a clean surface to which to adhere your fish and minimize stickage!

 

Fish did stick, a little, but I don’t eat the skin anyway, so it really worked out great. And PERFECTLY flaky fish!

This was two fish, totaling, after removing scales and guts, three and a half pounds or so. I grilled them for about ten minutes a side over somewhat indirect heat (but next to very hot coals).

Also made a salsa to go with the fish that was mango, cucumber, green onion, and Sriracha. Yum!

Oh, also, we learned that you can grill dumplings! Cause the grill was already hot.

 

Steve just wasn’t quite sure we’d have enough food, so he picked up baby eggplants at Hmart. I rolled my eyes at him and sure enough, they were my favorite part of the meal. When you just cut slits in their side and let ‘em cook on the grill, they lose any bitterness and become tender and amaaaaazing.

 

And then… we feasted!

The sort of Latin American side of the table:

Annnnd the Asian side:

   

Annnd my happy belly. And more.

 

And tomorrow… I get to do it again!

soup and bread; things stuffed in things; fish cooked well

… these are a few of my favorite things ^^

The good weather was not going to last forever, and rain moved in, so soup sounded like a good idea. Obviously. Along with homemade bread. Obviously.

Chill in the air? Simply stand over a hot stove and/or next to a hot oven.

Bread and soup for a cozy dinner table.

 

The soup was Mark Bittman’s minestrone, published in Parade magazine. My mom clipped it and made it.

Not as oh-so-easy as he makes it out to be (since we ate dinner at, oh, 9:30; though for us that’s kind of normal).

Quite delicious. Kale. Love it! Recipe here.

 

Good for dunkage was Cooking Light’s brown Irish soda bread, which I’ve made a gazillion times. This time the following substitutions:

for all purpose flour, used a mix of all-purpose and spelt
in lieu of egg, used 1 T flax, 3 T milk and added 1/2 tsp. extra baking powder and 1 tsp. oil
just for giggles, substituted homemade applesauce for 1/2 a cup of the buttermilk and thus omitted the brown sugar

SUPERB!

Was still on a soup kick for Sunday brunch. Trader Joe’s roasted red pepper tomato bisque, which isn’t anything to write home about if you get the low sodium version, unfortunately.

Uncharacteristically small brunch cause we’d already FEASTED on Arabic goodies at church, a small sample of which (due to the massiveness of the food and being unable to finish it) my mom brought home:

Za’atar bread, baba ghanoush, veggies, grapes.

Also was hummus, pita, scads more fruit and veg. Mm mm mm. I really need someone’s Lebanese grandmother to sit me down and show me how they make baba ghanoush. It’s different… and awesome.

The soup and church goodies didn’t quite do it (I’d not eaten breakfast, after all), so I had my favorite combo on the land:

Greek yogurt and homemade applesauce. It’s just SO PERFECT. Which is good because I have a lot of both items in my fridge.

 

Afternoon snackage was more hummus, but my own (cilantro ‘n lemon again; vair good). With carrots for dippage, and the last of the grapes that my mother still had not eaten.

 

Question: has anyone ever made something, froze it, thawed it, loved it, and forgotten what they put in it?

Witness this stuffed cabbage.

 

Excavation reveals the presence of bulgur, olives, mushrooms, and what I’m pretty sure is parsley. But quantities and method are a mystery.

SO delicious. And that iffy tomato soup is good as stuffed cabbage sauce.

 

My Monday morning began as most of my mornings do, with Sheila standing by the back door demanding to be let out… then in… then out… then in. As a reward for being such a good doorman (doorwoman?) she brings nice half-dead voles to the back door for us to enjoy as a family.

 

My oats for the week, a batch of which was made Sunday night, involves oats (duh), milk, flax, apples (surprise surprise, still have a ton), cinnamon, and nutmeg.

Almonds on top in the morning for protein ‘n crunch.

 

Lunch was eaten at my desk (boo) but delicious (yay!)

Things you’ve seen before: salad with farmer’s market greens and strawberries, delightful homemade bread, applesauce and Greek yogurt (the flavor! The texture!)

 

A rather unorthodox afternoon snack? How about a nice roll of stuffed cabbage!

You’ll notice the plate was also leftover. Apparently it just had decided to linger around the kitchen, so I appropriated it.

Consider the following recipe atonement for all the leftovers you just had to scroll through (if you made it this far).

It’s great, and it’s really thanks to Eating Well, which came up with the idea of poaching fish… on top of asparagus.

Intriguing, no?

Love asparagus :D

  

I went in a different flavor direction than theirs (which involved beurre blanc and I’m sure was great) because I was going for more of an Asian palette. Had cod, a great assertive fish that stands up to a lot of flavors.

So I sprinkled my cod with ginger, garlic, and green onion…

Then drizzled on a simple sauce with some of my favorite Asian flavors (hoisin sauce, sesame oil, and soy)…

 

And a few minutes on the stove (though wayyyyyyy more than Eating Well put in their cooking times, for some reason) led to a rather impressive meal for a weekday. Plated up with some cabbage-apple-rice vinegar slaw that was just okay. The fish is great. Make the fish.

Asian Cod Poached on Asparagus

½ bunch asparagus, snapped
12-ounce portion cod fillet
1 tsp minced ginger
½ tsp. minced garlic
1 spring onion
1 tsp. soy sauce
¼ tsp. sesame oil
2 tsp. hoisin sauce
¼ cup water

Sprinkle cod with salt and pepper. Sprinkle with ginger, garlic, and green onion. In a small bowl, combine soy sauce, sesame oil, and hoisin sauce.

Place asparagus in an even layer in a large skillet. Add 1/4 cup water. Place the cod on top of the asparagus, and pour the soy sauce mixture over the cod. Bring the skillet to a boil over medium heat. Cover and cook until the asparagus is tender and the fish is cooked through, which is really anyone’s guess since for me it took totally different times than advocated by the Eating Well recipe. For me, the asparagus finished first (after about 6 minutes), but the cod wasn’t done, so I removed the asparagus and continued to cook the cod. It took about 10 minutes. Serves 2.