Great Grains: Celebrating Our All-American Grain, Corn

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I’m writing this on the 4th of July, a day when we celebrate America, and what could be more American than corn? Corn (known as maize in much of the world) is as central to the peoples of the Americas as rice is to Asia.  Simply put, it is fundamental. As many of you know, I grew up on a farm in the great Midwestern corn belt where in summer we lived amongst a sea of waving corn. July days were often so hot and muggy all you wanted to do was jump in a cool lake. However, we knew better than to complain, as corn loves the heat, and grows so fast you can it see shoot up from day to day. An abundant corn crop meant money in the bank, and survival for another year. Most of that corn was field corn, the kind kept in the field until fall, harvested dry, and used for cattle feed, corn oil, and these days, ethanol. But we and neighboring farmers also grew sweet corn under contract to the Green Giant Company, whose canned and frozen corn was sold world wide.  During the five or six weeks sweet corn was in season, my memory is that we ate it every single day and never tired of it. So, I suppose you could say corn is in my blood, and to this day I pretty much love all things corn. So, for the next few weeks, I will be offering corn recipes, including one for Fresh Corn Tofu Frittata (after the jump). Previously, I’ve posted recipes for millet and corn croquettes, lemon cake made with cornmeal, and corn pudding.  Enjoy!

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This award-winning corn was shown at the 2008 Olmsted County Fair, Rochester, Minnesota (photo by Jonathunder, via Wikipedia)

Produce Superstars: Celebrate Cinco de Mayo With These Nopales Cactus Enchiladas

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Enchiladas, in all their glorious variety, are so well known and well liked here in California, we scarcely think of them as Mexican anymore. They’ve become, like pizza,  part of our native cuisine. In this recipe, I deconstruct the enchilada, and put it back together a little differently. Fundamentally, an enchilada is a tortilla which has been “chili-ied,” which is to say, flavored in some way with chiles. In this version, rather than stuffing, rolling and baking the tortillas, we simply warm the tortillas, spoon on a layer of filling, and sauce them, eliminating the baking, which often leads to everything being overcooked.

As for the ingredients, am I asking you to eat cactus? Yes indeed, and quite tasty it is. The part you’re going to eat is the leaf pad of the nopale (prickly pear cactus), a widely-grown commercial crop in Mexico. If your supermarket doesn’t stock nopales, shop where your Mexican-American neighbors shop. You will find them whole (as in the photo below), or prepped (diced, with the little thorns already removed). If you find only the whole cactus leaves, don’t fret. They can be easily prepped: using a kitchen towel, hold the nopale with one hand, and with the other hand scrape away the thorns with a paring knife or vegetable peeler. High in vitamins and minerals, nopales do best with light cooking, a quick sauté or brief time on a grill (overcooking can lead to sliminess). After the jump, I offer you my introduction to cactus cuisine: nopale-mushroom-tempeh enchiladas with salsa ranchera.

Millet Marries Chickpeas, Comfort Food In Loaf Form

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Sometimes you just want something hearty and substantial to bite into, and this loaf is that. Yes, it takes a bit of time to put together, but it truly is a meal in loaf form. Loaded with protein and minerals from the chickpeas, vitamins from the millet and vegetables, amino acids from the sunflower seeds and fiber from everything, this recipe is a nutritional powerhouse. And I like that it stars millet, a mild, sweet-tasting grain which doesn’t get the love it deserves. This recipe serves 8-10, so take it to a potluck or slice and freeze in zip lock bags. Served with a favorite gravy or sauce, I think this loaf’s subtle goodness will sneak up on you.  Full recipe after the jump.

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Pearl millet growing in a field. Millet has been cultivated in East Asia for thousands of years, and while India is the largest single producer of millet today, Africa is the world's leading millet growing region. (USDA photo)

The New York Times Takes Up The Hunt For A Great Meatless Burger

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I’m often amused and delighted when the mainstream media takes up a topic I’ve written about on this blog. This week, The New York Times has been writing about veggie burgers. It seems they’ve gone from being disreputable afterthoughts to creative outlets for talented chefs: ”…veggie burgers haven’t merely become good. They have exploded into countless variations of good, and in doing so they’ve begun to look like a bellwether for the American appetite. If the growing passion for plant-based diets is here to stay, chefs — even in restaurants where you won’t find the slightest trace of spirulina — are paying attention.” New York Times readers were paying attention too. For a time, the featured article (here) was among the ten most emailed articles on their site, evoking dozens of comments. Photos of six burgers being served in New York and L.A. restaurants are here, and a recipe for a Thai carrot burger, along with reader comments (and more recipes) are here. My entry into the meatless burger sweepstakes (pictured in the photo above, from a July 2010 post) is here. It’s always great see that good food is getting the recognition it deserves–who knew meatless burgers had become so cool?

Menu of the Week: A Vegan Meal to Warm Your Soul

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Clockwise from top left: Fresh Kale Salad, Mashed Carrots and Parsnips, Pickled Red Cabbage, Buckwheat-Potato Croquette with Caramelized Onion and Sunflower Butter Gravy

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Back in the day, when I was a chef at Café Kardamena in St. Paul,  I used to make these warming croquettes frequently during those what-seemed-like-endless Minnesota winters. Now that I’m cooking in mild California, I only serve them about once a year, but they remain one of my favorites. Buckwheat and potatoes seem made for each other, and fried with a crisp crust–yum! The croquette’s caramelized onion gravy is enriched with sunflower butter.  Although not as well known as peanut butter or tahini, sunflower butter has a unique, rich taste all its own, which I truly think you’d love. I’ve paired the croquette with three seasonal vegetable dishes: one raw, one boiled and mashed, one pickled.  Three flavors, colors and preparation methods all of which add a light, bright foil to the hearty croquettes. More menu descriptions with recipes, after the jump…

Menu of the Week: What We Served for Valentine’s Day

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Our Bulgar and Quinoa "Neat Loaf," leaning against a pile of mashed potatoes, with a creamy mushroom gravy. Also on the plate: marinated, roasted beets and carrots, and a green salad (recipes after the jump). Click on this photo to enlarge it.

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This year, Valentine’s day fell on a Monday, so I wanted to create a special menu of cool weather comfort food for all who come to our weekly vegetarian dinners in Palo Alto. And what is more iconic of comfort food than meatloaf, mashed potatoes and gravy? Needless too say, our “neat loaf” is a little bit different from the meaty version, but if you try it, I think you’ll find it pretty tasty. Roasted beets, and radicchio in the salad add a note of seasonal red, to carry forward our Valentine’s theme. We began the meal with Split Pea Soup (I’ll try to post a recipe soon), and ended with Chocolate-Peanut Butter Brown Rice Crispy Treats. Recipes for the rest of the menu are after the jump…

Celebrate Chinese New Year with Vegetable Moo Shu (And a Homemade Plum Sauce)

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Moo shu has long been one of my favorite dishes to order in a Chinese restaurant.  While it is traditionally made with pork, most restaurants do a chicken or vegetarian version as well. It’s great to order as an appetizer–everyone at the table participates in the ritual of spreading sauce and wrapping up their own pancakes.  Ah, the sauce.  Can’t have moo shu without it. Hoisin or plum sauce is traditional and these you can buy in any Asian market. Trouble is, sugar is the first ingredient in most of these sauces and caramel coloring is likely to be second. I’ve solved that problem with a recipe for a much more delicious sauce you can quickly make at home. You might need to make a shopping trip to your local Asian market, but you probably wanted to do that anyway! So, get out your wok–it’s the only cookware you’ll need.  And 新年快樂 (which I think means “happy new year” in Mandarin). Recipes after the jump…

Great Grains: Turning Buckwheat Groats into Kasha Varnishkes (a Warming Dish for Cold Winter Days)

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Making Kasha Varnishkes from buckwheat groats is as easy as 1, 2, 3. (Toasted buckwheat groats are widely known as kasha in North America.)

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Maybe you need to have grown up in some wind-swept northern clime to fully appreciate the hearty, warming quality of buckwheat (if it isn’t a necessity, I’m pretty sure it helps). You won’t be surprised to learn that Russia grows more buckwheat than anyone else, with China second, and Ukraine third. While in East Asia, buckwheat is most often consumed as a noodle (think Japanese soba noodles), in Western Europe and North America we know buckwheat best as an ingredient in pancakes and crepes. But it’s the whole grain buckwheat groats of Russia and Eastern Europe that I want to celebrate today. Buckwheat’s ability to thrive in poor soil and a short growing season endeared it to our Eastern European ancestors, many of whom likely would have starved without it. It’s peasant food, pure and simple, but nutritiously rich in iron and a balanced concentration of all essential amino acids.

Toasted whole grain buckwheat groats

Immigrants from Russia, Poland and other Slavic countries, many of them Jewish, brought buckwheat to the U.S. From the 1880′s to the 1920′s, tens of thousands of these folk settled in New York’s Lower East Side, where I lived in the late 60′s. It was in one of that neighborhood’s thriving Jewish dairy restaurants where I first encountered kasha varnishkes, the Yiddish name for a much-loved dish which consists of little more than buckwheat groats, bow tie noodles and onions. The dish’s simplicity invites variations–some versions calling for eggs or chicken stock, or a rich gravy on top. These days, kasha varnishkes is mostly served as a side dish, but doubtless during times of scarcity, it was the entire meal. My vegan version sticks close to the pared down original, with only the addition of mushrooms.  So, some chilly day, eat like our ancestors ate, bring the past into the present and cook up a warming batch of kasha varnishkes (recipe after the jump).

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Menu of the Week: Can Veggies Star at a Holiday Party? (Yes They Can!)

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One guest's plate: From top center: Salmon Salad, Roasted Red Kuri Squash, Seitan and Red Potatoes, Belgium Endive Stuffed with Roasted Cauliflower Salad, Millet-Potato Croquette.

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As you’ll see, my idea of party food is a bit different.  I have little patience for fussy hors d’oeuvres and see no reason why party food can’t be nutritionally sound as well as being colorful and fun to eat. Rather than filling people with snacks, I prefer to give them a light meal. I set out a buffet with medium-sized plates, real forks and napkins and provide places where they can sit and relax. Something I learned in Japan makes buffet service easier: many foods are delicious eaten room temperature, not everything needs to be piping hot. The thirty-five or so guests who dropped in for my New Year’s open house seemed pleased with this menu (see complete menu here), and towards the end, when I sat down to eat, I confess that I enjoyed it a lot myself! Recipes and more photos, after the jump…

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Another guest's plate: note the addition of long beans and green salad (photos by Robert Starkey).

Sweet Potato-Potato Latkes: Would a Potato Pancake By Any Other Name Taste As Sweet?

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Yes, it is the seventh night of Hanukkah already, so I’m a bit tardy with this recipe for latkes, the potato pancakes which are traditional to this holiday.  But, you know, there’s never a time of year when potato pancakes are not welcome.  So, here’s my recipe which I made for nearly 100 people last night in Palo Alto. Don’t stint on the oil, with latkes it is all about the oil–you definitely want a crisp, golden crust.  Served traditionally, of course, with sour cream or apple sauce, I’ve included a recipe for tofu sour cream which is pretty darn good (full recipe after the jump).