Super Natural Cooking

There’s been a bag of shelled edamame in my freezer for what feels like forever and getting back into making recipes for this blog seemed like a good opportunity to use it. The ingredients in this salad are pretty high on the list of “power foods” – edamame, soybeans, hijiki (a sea vegetable), miso, unpasteurized honey and spinach – lots of antioxidants, minerals and other essential nutrients.

I had a bag of dulse in the cupboard and so I used that instead of the hijiki, and next time I would increase the amount. The salad came together easily and the dressing too. I will definitely make the creamy miso dressing again for other salads.

I really like recipes that call for “handfuls” of greens since I tend to always try to sneak in more veggies than specifically called for. I used a whole clamshell of baby spinach and could still have gotten away with more. The recipe makes plenty of dressing so no need to skimp on any of the salad components. I’d never bought daikon before and standing in front of the bin full of various sizes in the grocery store looking for the 1/2 daikon that the recipe calls for was a bit tricky, but here, to a certain degree, size doesn’t matter. The daikon and a carrot are shredded and then sliced into matchsticks (a step I skipped) so add as much as you like.

All in all, a pretty tasty and healthy recipe. Definitely a do-again!

I’ve made granola before using a few different recipes so I was interested to see how this one turned out. Granola is pretty flexible; mix together oats, nuts, seeds, dried fruit, sweetener and some kind of oil and bake until browned. This recipe was no different aside from varying the quantities of a few ingredients. It also called for orange zest which I omitted since I’m picky with citrus flavour and don’t feel like it belongs in granola.

I like the ingredients used in this recipe (coconut, honey, coconut oil) and I think next time I’ll try for more of a tropical variation as suggested in the recipe by using macadamia nuts and tropical dried fruit. I used walnuts, dried apricots and raisins in the batch I made and it was delicious. Why spend the big bucks on “deluxe” granola at the store when it’s so easy to make and customize your own?

I’ve eaten this with almond milk, sprinkled on top of a sliced banana and with yogurt, and by the handful. Such a versatile breakfast and snack food!

Good news and bad news. Let’s do the bad news first: I wish this cookbook would lie flat when open. I always have to pin the edges under whatever random heavy things are on my counter. Spiral-bound recipes books are very nice for this reason. Now, the good news: I highly recommend this cookbook for the following recipe alone. It was amazing!! The recipe is for the Muhammara sauce as well as the kabobs. I was trying to imagine how to serve it and decided something bready was needed and going along with the Middle Eastern theme, I decided to make pita bread. I found a recipe in The Joy of Cooking and boy was it easy! You make a basic yeasty dough, let it rise for a while then split it into eight little balls which rest under a towel while one by one, they are rolled out into a flat circle and baked. I used my pizza stoneware and could only cook one at a time, but at 3 minutes each, it didn’t take long. They are perfect! Just like what you’d buy in the store, but warm, soft and fresh. Mmm.

Now back to the main recipe. While the pita dough was rising I got to work roasting a couple red peppers for the sauce. You can use bottled roasted red peppers, but I wanted to roast them from scratch. While the peppers were roasting I assembled all the remaining ingredients for the sauce: red pepper flakes, cumin, toasted walnuts, bread crumbs, olive oil, agave syrup, and tomato paste. The recipe called for pomegranate molasses in place of the agave syrup, but I didn’t have any, and couldn’t find any in the store. Heidi does suggest using pomegranate juice instead, but I didn’t have that either and so for a bit of sweetness I opted for the agave syrup. I will definitely keep my eyes open for pomegranate molasses though… sounds delicious! Once the peppers were roasted and skinned I added them to the rest of the ingredients and pureed it all with a bit of salt. The recipe also suggests adding water to bring the sauce to the right consistency, but mine was fine without. I stuck it in the fridge and starting getting the kabobs assembled.

When I was buying the ingredients for this recipe, I had my doubts about putting lemons on the skewers and barbecuing them along with the other vegetables, but on they went, along with red onion wedges, tofu cubes and whole cremini mushrooms. I brushed the kabobs with olive oil and salt and then let The Man take over the barbecuing duties. As he barbecued, I baked the pitas. It all came together in an amazingly delicious-smelling and eye-catching ensemble.

To eat, I laid down a pita and removed the veggies from the skewers, the softened lemons squeezed themselves and soon there was warm lemon juice coating the rest of the veggies and dripping down my arm. I ignored it, slathered on some Muhammara and dug in. It was heaven. The spicy, roasted dip was amazing and was livened up with the barbecued lemon juice. The red onions were deliciously tender and slightly charred at the edges as were the mushrooms and tofu. There was silence around the table as we devoured the kabobs wrapped with pitas and covered with Muhammara. Wow. I wouldn’t change anything in this recipe. If you are a meat eater, you could easily substitute the tofu with cubes of meat. The end result was quite visually appealing as well – the red onions, yellow lemons, neutral mushrooms and tofu and red-brown sauce. My mouth is watering thinking about it all.

So go! Buy this book and try it for yourself!! You will not be disappointed. And with that, I’m off to snack on the leftover pitas and sauce – yes the sauce recipe makes enough for leftovers… perfect!

Quinoa (keen-wa) has fast become one of my favourite grains. It’s easy to make, deliciously nutty and high in protein. I recently bought red quinoa and was excited to try it in this recipe. I prepared and sautéed the onion and garlic and then added the quinoa. The pan was deglazed with wine which was then brought to a simmer. I added the water and then cooked the quinoa as usual. This was a great way to give the quinoa more flavour and it would be fun to try red wine and substitute the Crescenza with a blue cheese for a stronger flavour.

While the quinoa was cooking I starting working on the mushrooms. The recipe calls for 1 pound. I used about a pound and a quarter and bought 3 different varieties; cremini, shiitake and portobello. I love mushrooms and I LOVE them sautéed in butter. Red pepper flakes were added to the butter and this gave the mushrooms some surprise spiciness.

The recipe calls for Crescenza cheese, but I used brie produced by Little Qualicum Cheeseworks on Vancouver Island. The author also suggests trying Gruyere or Tallegio. Once the quinoa was tender, the cheese was stirred in and the mushrooms were served on top.

The recipe made 4 main dish or 6 side dish servings. The mushrooms with melted brie were delicious and the quinoa was was earthy and nutty. I really liked the variety of mushrooms and would definitely do that again and the red quinoa really looked great. It would have made a very rich main dish and was really nice paired with a light salad.

I suppose this could be modified with a wide variety of vegetables and different cheeses – steamed broccoli and cheddar cheese, sautéed zucchini and feta and roasted beets with goat cheese are some ideas that come to mind. I’ve cooked quinoa with veggies before, but I really liked sautéing the onion and garlic and then deglazing the pan with wine; such an easy way to add more depth to the quinoa. I also really liked the cubes of cheese rather than having it shredded and melted throughout. I think it might have been a bit overwhelming to have cheese in every bite. I’ve really appreciated how most of the recipes from this book so far can be used as templates for experimentation; grain + vegetable + cheese in this case.

I’ve got a couple posts queued up but I’m bumping this one to the front of the line. This was the first recipe I made from this cookbook a year or so ago and I found it disappointing. I just made it again tonight and I have to say it was so much better! Last time it was too bitter and sour – I think both the celery and kumquats contributed to that – neither were at their peak. When I saw kumquats in the store today, I knew I had to try this recipe again and they are so much better than the last time I bought them! Much better balance of sour and sweet and not nearly as bitter. The recipe also calls for clementines, which I couldn’t find, but I did find minneola tangelos and so used them instead. They were very juicy and flavourful; sweet yet tart.

The salad comes together really easily – tangelos are peeled and segmented, celery and kumquats sliced thinly, and walnuts toasted. The dressing is simple – olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper.

The salad is topped with shaved parmesan and I decided to serve it all on a bed of mixed greens. This recipe brings together mouth-watering flavours with the sweet and sour citrus, nutty walnuts and fresh parmesan. I’m so glad I gave this recipe another try! This was a perfect meal for an early spring day like today; bright citrus with earthy walnuts… I wish I had made more because I would have certainly had seconds!

I wasn’t able to find the big fat udon noodles I was looking for, but used buckwheat udon instead and it was really good. The recipe starts off by cooking the noodles in boiling, salted water. While the noodles are cooking, I started working on the curry. The kitchen was soon smelling delicious as the onion, garlic and red curry paste were simmered in coconut oil. The tofu was added and coated with the curry mixture, followed by coconut milk, stock, turmeric, soy sauce and sugar. The recipe calls for shoyu sauce, which is the same as soy sauce or tamari. The curry was brought to a simmer for a few minutes. After taking it off the heat, some lime juice was stirred in, followed by the noodles. All in all, a pretty easy recipe to follow and a quick one too.

To serve, the noodles and sauce were topped with peanuts, chopped shallots and cilantro. I love all the flavours in this meal; coconut milk, curry, lime, peanuts and cilantro, but as a main dish (recipe will make 4 main dishes or 6 side dishes), the result is fairly calorific.

I’m not really a fan of really spicy dishes and the amount of curry paste called for in this recipe was as spicy as I like to go. If you like hot food, add more. This dish would be tasty served with an asian-inspired cole slaw or other cabbage salad. Perhaps savoy cabbage with bean sprouts, snap peas, green onions and a miso-ginger dressing.

I like trying new recipes and then finding ways to stretch them. For instance, I would make this again, but maybe I’d change it up a bit; a broth soup (no coconut milk) and no curry paste, topped with basil and toasted cashews and served with hot sauce on the side – more like Pho than a curry. It would also be easy to add some steamed veggies like broccoli, carrots or chard. I really liked the buckwheat noodles and will definitely use them again.

It was a chilly, rainy night and I wanted to make something easy and warm for dinner.  We’ve been overloaded with oranges in our recent organic produce delivery (Thank you Organics@home!) and earlier in the week I had picked up all the ingredients for this and a couple other recipes from the book.

I got all the ingredients out and started chopping and sautéing the onion, shallots, and garlic.  The recipe says to heat the butter, but it calls for olive oil in the list of ingredients.  I used oil, but I’m sure butter would be good too.  The barley gets added to the sautéed onion, shallots and garlic.  Followed by the wine, and then all the water, a cup at a time.  While stirring and simmering the barley, I got the rest of the ingredients ready; chopped, measured, zested and grated.  Watch for orange seeds – mine had so many!

The barley took about 45 minutes to soften.  Once it was ready, everything except for the walnuts were stirred in.  I probably used twice as much arugula because I usually try to sneak in extra veggies and this was an easy place to do it.  Greens like these will wilt down nicely and they are really good for you – lots of vitamin A, vitamin C and calcium.  Chard or spinach would have also been good here or maybe even a combination.  That’s what I’ll do next time.

Topped with toasted walnuts, photographed and served.  Mine looked more creamy than the picture in the book.  The recipe made four main-dish sized servings, though next time I would serve as a side dish so it would easily serve 6.  My partner’s first impression was “Oatmeal for dinner!?”  Yes, it looks just like oatmeal, with chopped flecks of green.  Oh well.  It tasted great.  I’m pretty picky about citrus flavour in foods – especially orange – but this was really good.  In the recipe, she suggests grapefruit, tangerines and tangelos as other options.  The toasted walnuts were tasty and added a nice crunch.  Other nuts would be good too… maybe pine nuts with goat cheese instead of the sour cream that was called for.  Could also add some tarragon or oregano.

This would also be delicious with a mild blue cheese, sliced pear and toasted walnuts.  I’ve made delicious appetizers with that combo before on baguette slices.

Plenty of ways to add more variety to this recipe.  I really like that.  I have limited experience with barley, so I was happy to learn a new way to cook it and I really liked the texture in the risotto.  It was delicious the next day for lunch too!