Vegan, delicious, no-fat, brownies

This is a wonderful gift from the Happy Herbivore. Think of chocolate covered banana. Enjoy! And, visit the Happy Herbivorefor more great ideas.

Black Bean Brownies Recipe

Servings: 9

Description:

Dense, fudge-y and ultra-healthy, these brownies are a great alternative to traditional brownies! It’s amazing how they taste like chocolate and fudge and not beans! Chef’s Notes: Rolled oats run through the food processor may substituted for the instant oats. Use optional sugar if your bananas are still green and not very ripe.

Ingredients:

• 15 ounces black beans, drained and rinsed
• 2 whole bananas
• ⅓ cup agave nectar
• ¼ cup unsweetened cocoa
• 1 tbsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• ¼ cup raw sugar (optional)
• ¼ cup instant oats

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease an 8×8″ pan and set aside. Combine all ingredients, except oats, in a food processor or blender and blend until smooth, scrapping sides as needed. Stir in the oats and pour batter into the pan. Bake approximately 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Allow to cool before slicing. Chef’s Note: if you find these brownies are too soft or too fudge-y, add another 1/4 cup oats or flour.

Spinach Pesto

This year, I subscribed to a CSA from Picadilly Farms. Right now, the weekly share is a large box of leafy foods:  greens, greens, spinach, lettuce, and greens. And some kohlrabi.

Now, I enjoy my green drink (spinach+frozen mango+water+vitamix), and a good spinach salad. But, there is no way I can consume this entire box of greens in one week.

It’s interesting. Being part of a farm CSA, I get what is actually growing and ready now. We should just call it leaf season!

Pesto to the Rescue!

This recipe for Spinach Pesto uses many ingredients from my box:  spinach, parsley, and I threw in garlic scapes (cuz I had them). It’s awesome. (OK, I didn’t grow the grated parmesan, but I could buy it at the supermarket.) Now, does anyone know what to do with kohlrabi?

Spinach PESTO

Ingredients:

Yield:  2 cups

• 2 cups fresh spinach leaves, well-washed and stemmed
• 1/2 cup fresh parsley, preferably Italian flat leaf
• 1/2 cup walnuts or 1/2 cup pine nuts, toasted
• 1/4 cup parmesan cheese, freshly grated, not canned
• 3 garlic cloves
• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 1/4 teaspoon sea salt
• 1/8 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper

Directions:

Prep Time: 10 minsTotal Time: 10 mins

1. 1 Place all ingredients into food processor and process to a fine paste.
2. 2 Taste and adjust seasonings and transfer to a glass container and top with a thin coat of olive oil to prevent the top of the pesto from discoloring.
3. 3 Keeps for weeks in the refrigerator.
4. (I put some in zip-lock snack size bags in the freezer.  Stay tuned to find out if that’s still good when it gets excavated.)

Obsessing About Beans

It’s a genetic thing. We Karash family folk get interested in something (Phase 1). Then we equip fully (Phase 2). Then we engage (Phase 3).

It’s about beans. Heirloom beans. It is my niece’s fault. She introduced me to Rancho Gordo heirloom beans. She said “They just taste better. Really” (or something like that). Yeah. Like beans even have a taste. Aren’t they just a device to carry barbeque sauce into your eating orifice?

OK. Not to be scammed, I immediately visited Rancho Gordo (online, I couldn’t run to Napa this week) — Phase 1 begins. Lucky me, they have a video about cooking beans, and an online store! Hooray! On to Phase 2:  equip fully.

Oh dear. In the video, he cooks his beans in a clay pot. THAT is the missing link. Off to Amazon for an authentic clay pot, made in Chile (where my daughter is going in August). Well, THAT looks like a great deal. I can cook in the Chilean pot while she is in Chile. Double bonus points!

Nothing less than the best equipment. I learned that from my dad:  “Always buy good tools. Don’t buy cheap junk tools because they don’t last.” (or something like that). Thanks Dad, I needed that clay pot.

Now, the pot has arrived. The Rancho Gordo bean cookbook has arrived. Where are my beans?

Not to be derailed from a healthy obsession (fiber + protein + nutrients galore), I am ready and waiting with a new recipe, included below. The recipe is from a gardening blog, called A Way to Garden. She made these with Martha Stewart, so they must be good! I will report in the comments. If you try this, let me know what you think! (Oh yes, I am reading the cookbook, awaiting authentic Rancho Gordo beans to make the authentic Rancho Gordo recipes.)

Is it time to go to Napa?

Phase 3:  Cook the beans!

Vegetarian Baked Beans

Ingredients:
1 pound dry beans (I like a Cranberry type, but a creamier-textured Navy-style small white bean is the traditional choice and cooks faster; in this batch I used ‘Yellow Eye’)

2 quartered medium onions

1/4 cup+ molasses (I use Wholesome Sweeteners organic style, very rich)

1/4 cup+ maple syrup — I like Dark Amber for robust flavor

4 Tbsp. grainy mustard

4-6 Italian-style paste tomatoes, roughly cut up—alternatively use other tomatoes, canned tomatoes, or even some red sauce

boiling water, enough to cover an inch or so above solids in pot

small amount of olive oil

Steps:
Soak the beans overnight, discard the water. Add fresh water and simmer them briefly (maybe 30 mins.) to just barely tender while preheating oven to 350ish. The “right” temperature really varies with the size of pot you are using; you want the beans to bubble.

Put water on to boil.

Coat an oven-proof covered pot, such as a Dutch oven or large Pyrex casserole or ceramic bean pot, with a splash of olive oil. Lay the quartered onions in the bottom. (Note on selecting a pot: There must be enough headroom to put in all ingredients above, plus at least 1 inch above that of boiling water plus clearance to prevent overflows.)

Drain beans; dress them with the other ingredients above (sweeteners and mustard and tomatoes). Pour over the onions.

Pour boiling water over the mixture until it’s an inch or so above the solids.

Cover and bake until done, between two hours and forever.  Many recipes say to leave baked beans uncovered while cooking; doing so, with certain large beans, I have had it take six hours or more. I cover the casserole, and periodically check to see if water is receding…if so, I taste a bean…if not nearly ready, I add more boiling water, often a couple of times.

Once the beans reach an almost-ready tenderness, uncover and turn up heat to 375 the last hour (give or take) to reduce the liquid to a thick, dark brown syrup, turning the ingredients a couple of times to mix everything up.

If the flavor isn’t sweet enough, or tomato-ey enough, or wants salt, add it during this last phase.  Or balance the maple-to-molasses ratio to suit your taste. This is a flexible process, not delicate chemistry. You can even make the beans soupier, with more sauce than I like, by not cooking down so long.

Again: The beans you start with, how well you soak/cook them first, and the vessel you cook in really make the timing and temperature combination vary.  Experiment.

Cold Brewed Iced Coffee

Who wants to boil water when it is seven bazillion degrees outside?  Here’s a way to make GREAT iced coffee without heating up the stove.

 

Iced coffee w/o boiling

Time: 5 minutes, plus 12 hours’ resting

1/3 cup ground coffee (medium-coarse grind is best. Use good coffee to make good coffee!

Milk (optional)

1. In a jar, stir together coffee and 1 1/2 cups water. Cover and let rest at room temperature overnight or 12 hours.

2. Strain twice through a coffee filter, a fine-mesh sieve or a sieve lined with cheesecloth.

3. In a tall glass filled with ice, mix equal parts coffee concentrate and water, or to taste. If desired, add milk.

Yield: Two drinks.

NOTE: To make hot coffee, dilute concentrate one-to-one with water and heat in the microwave.

This from the web:

Freeze some of the concentrate into cubes. Matched with regular ice cubes, they melt into the same ratio as the final blend.

Try it. Do you like it? Leave a comment with your tips!

Drafts

It’s interesting. I came to my blog dashboard, and there were some unpublished drafts. So they’ve been coming out lately.

It’s so interesting to read something from over a year ago. Is it still meaningful? Is it drivel? If it isn’t even interesting to me, I press the “Move To Trash” button.

Now that’s the great thing about blogs. You can let them sit around, and when it’s time, just press “Move To Trash”. Much harder to do that with life. Oh yes, that little episode where I acted stupid:  “Move To Trash”.

In life, the trash kind of stays with you. But, you can put it into the Recycle Bin of your mind. No need to dwell and excessively immortalize the stupidities. Identify them. Learn from them. File in the “Do Not Renew” folder.

And, as long as my metaphors are totally confused, let’s talk about your brain!

We always thought the brain was kind of done by the early twenties. Then, we realized it isn’t really done until the mid- to late-twenties. And NOW, we find that meditation actually CREATES gray matter. Meditators have the awareness of much younger non-meditators. Holy MACKEREL! That is something.

That literally blows my mind.

So. Do yourself a favor. Sit still and do nothing.

Good Cake Recipe

Here is an old family recipe. When I was growing up, we called it Good Cake. Probably because it tasted good.

It really isn’t on the menu this week, but I’m putting it here so that we can find it, for future reference, for those occasions when we need a Good Cake.

I think the original recipe may have been called “Chocolate Chantilly Torte”, but really, who would make that. Karash family Good Cake. Enjoy!

Ingredients

• 2 bars Baker’s German sweet chocolate
• 3 tbsp. water
• 2 Large eggs, separated
• 2 tbsp. confectioners’ sugar
• 1 pt. whipping cream with 2 tbsp. confectioners’ sugar
• 1 angel food cake

Directions

1. Heat chocolate, water and 2 Tbsp. confectioners’ sugar; stir till smooth. Remove from heat. Add in egg yolks; beat till smooth. Mix in stiffly beaten egg whites. Cool.
2. Beat whipping cream and 2 Tbsp. confectioners’ sugar till soft peaks form. Cut angel food cake into 4 layers. Top each layer with whipped cream and drizzle on some of the chocolate mix.
3. Put only chocolate mix on top of the cake, allowing it to drip down the sides. Refrigerate4-5 hrs or possibly overnight. 12 servings.

Key Lime Super Bowl Winner

Key Lime Pie  

[From Joy of Cooking]

1 graham cracker crust

1 can sweetened condensed milk (14 oz.)

½ c. key lime or other type of lime juice (about 12 key limes will be needed if using them)

1 tblsp. grated lime zest

4 egg yolks

Garnish:

1 c. heavy cream

2 tblsp. sugar

Preheat to 325.  Whisk the yolks, zest and milk in a bowl.   Add the juice and continue whisking.  It will thicken a bit.  

Pour into crust and bake for 15-17 minutes.  It will still be a little jiggly.  Cool on a rack to room temperature and then chill for a few hours, up to 24. 

To serve, whip cream, add some sugar and garnish the pie with the whipped cream.    

Coconut Red Lentil Soup

On the menu for tonight:  more of those amazing red lentils, in a new soup recipe from Heidi Swanson, of 101 Cookbooks.

 

Coconut Red Lentil Soup

See the photo in the main entry if you aren’t sure what type of lentils and split peas to buy. For those of you who are curious, I used the Terre Exotique Madras Curry Powder I picked up in Paris – it looks like it is available here now too (I think I’ve come across it on Amazon’s grocery section). Vegans – you can easily make this vegan by using coconut or olive oil in place of the butter called for.

1 cup / 7 oz / 200g yellow split peas
1 cup 7 oz / 200g red split lentils (masoor dal)
7 cups / 1.6 liters water
1 medium carrot, cut into 1/2-inch dice
2 tablespoons fresh peeled and minced ginger
2 tablespoons curry powder
2 tablespoons butter or ghee
8 green onions (scallions), thinly sliced
1/3 cup / 1.5 oz / 45g golden raisins
1/3 / 80 ml cup tomato paste
1 14-ounce can coconut milk
2 teaspoons fine grain sea salt
one small handful cilantro, chopped

cooked brown rice or farro, for serving (optional)

Give the split peas and lentils a good rinse – until they no longer put off murky water. Place them in an extra-large soup pot, cover with the water, and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to a simmer and add the carrot and 1/4 of the ginger. Cover and simmer for about 30 minutes, or until the split peas are soft.

In the meantime, in a small dry skillet or saucepan over low heat, toast the curry powder until it is quite fragrant. Be careful though, you don’t want to burn the curry powder, just toast it. Set aside. Place the butter in a pan over medium heat, add half of the green onions, the remaining ginger, and raisins. Saute for two minutes stirring constantly, then add the tomato paste and saute for another minute or two more.

Add the toasted curry powder to the tomato paste mixture, mix well, and then add this to the simmering soup along with the coconut milk and salt. Simmer, uncovered, for 20 minutes or so. The texture should thicken up, but you can play around with the consistency if you like by adding more water, a bit at a time, if you like. Or simmer longer for a thicker consistency. The thicker this soup got, the more I liked it.

I’ve been enjoying big ladles of this soup over ~1/2 cup of warm farro (leftover from this Farro & Bean Stew) – brown rice was good as well. Sprinkle each bowl generously with cilantro and the remaining green onions.

Serves 6.

Magic Mushroom Soup Chowder

This is from Heidi Swanson, 101 Cookbooks blog. This mushroom soup is delicious. Her new cookbook, Super Natural Every Day, is sure to be filled with great recipes. When I made this, I used baby bellas and shitake mushrooms from Trader Joe’s. I want  to go to Whole Foods (or my nearby Korean Food SuperStore) and try a wider variety of mushrooms. Mushrooms are full of phytonutrients (I call them Fighter Nutrients, and have them wear superhero capes.), so we want to eat lots of mushrooms. Enjoy! — Sue

Mixed Mushroom Chowder

As I mention in the main post, I used cooked pearl barley that I happened to have bagged and frozen on hand. I could’ve just as easily reached for brown rice, wild rice, or even wheatberries – use whatever you’ve got! On the mushroom front – use a combination of mushrooms – brown, porcini, chanterelle, etc. The soup was particularly good with a slab of grilled sesame seed bread from Tartine.

You might add a bit of cubed pan-fried tofu, tempeh, or seitan, crouton-style to make this a complete one-dish meal. And as far as leftovers go, for a slightly more decadent version, I’m thinking about whipping up a bit of heavy cream, adding the toasted sesame oil to it, salting it, and serving the soup with a dollop of the cream plus some chives on top…

3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil or clarified butter

1 pound assorted fresh mushrooms, cut into bite-sized pieces

fine grain sea salt & freshly ground pepper
1 medium yellow onion, finely chopped
1 medium red onion, finely chopped
2-3 tablespoons shoyu or soy sauce
1 1/2 cups cooked pearled barley
6 cups / 1.5 l good-tasting vegetable broth
1/4 teaspoon toasted sesame oil
finely chopped chives, to serve

In your largest, widest soup pot heat two tablespoons of olive oil over medium-high heat. Stir in the mushrooms and season with salt and pepper. Cook stirring a couple times along the way, until the mushrooms release their liquid and they are deeply browned. About 8 minutes. Remove the mushrooms from the pan, set aside on a plate.

Using the same pot, heat the remaining tablespoon of oil over medium-high heat. Stir in the onions and cook until tender, a few minutes. Stir 2 tablespoons of the shoyu, barley, and then the vegetable broth. Bring to a simmer, then reduce the heat a bit. Add the mushrooms and cook another 10 minutes or so. Stir in the toasted sesame oil and taste. You might want to add remaining tablespoon of shoyu or soy sauce, particularly if your broth wasn’t very salty. And you might want to add more toasted sesame oil a few drops at a time. Just keep tweaking until everything balances out for you. Serve sprinkled with lots of chopped chives.

Serves about six.

Prep time: 15 min – Cook time: 20 min

Spicy Rouille – goes with the Boulliabaisse!

Spicy Rouille

This bright red garlicky sauce (pronounced roo-EE) has a nice kick of cayenne. Traditionally an accompaniment for bouillabaisse, it’s also great served as a condiment with grilled shrimp or mahi-mahi.

1/3 cup, for 6 servings

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup chopped jarred roasted red peppers
• 3 tablespoons reduced-fat mayonnaise
• 2 teaspoons lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon minced, garlic
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1 Pinch saffron, (see Tip)

Preparation

1. Combine red peppers, mayonnaise, lemon juice, garlic, salt, pepper, cayenne and saffron in a food processor; pulse, scraping down the sides as necessary, until smooth.