Clean Protein Bars

I have a new stove!  So naturally, I'm updating with a recipe that requires no cooking at all.

This is a recipe I snagged from 100 Days of Real Food.  I don't love chocolate, so I opted to try out the peanut butter and honey ones.  I made bars because I'm cranky and tired, and the idea of rolling peanut butter in my hands was stressful.  No.  There is no reason this should be stressful!  BARS!

I read a review saying these were too sweet, and I got a bit concerned because over-sweet puts me off different foods.  I consulted with a friend who has made these before.  She advised that you can cut back on the honey by a quarter to a half a cup.  I decided to go ahead with the recipe as-is and add more peanut butter and oatmeal if it was too sweet for me.  It wasn't too sweet.

Ingredients:
1 C honey
1 C peanut butter or almond butter
3 C rolled oats
1 C chopped nuts, seeds, dried fruits

Toppings for dusting/rolling: granola, dried coconut, more chopped nuts...

For my mix-in additions, I chopped about 3/4 C almonds, sesame seeds, cherries, and cranberries, and then added about 1/4 C of flax seeds.

Combine honey, peanut butter, oatmeal, and chopped additions in a large bowl.  Mix thoroughly, until it resembles oatmeal cookie dough.

That's really it!  You can roll into balls and then roll the balls in coconut or granola or whatever, and you're good to go!  The recipe says it yields 10-12 bars, depending on size.  I pressed mine into a pan lined with wax paper to make bars.  I have it chilling so they will be easy to cut.

I made a few things to break in the new stove, so you'll be seeing more pretty soon!

Sorry!

Sorry for the unexpected hiatus.  Stove problems, stove problems, stove problems, BAM.  Stove shorted out.

So then stove shopping, stove mind-changing, stove shopping, stove ordering, and now waiting for delivery.

So the hiatus will last a bit longer.  I had no idea it would be this long to begin with!

What Do You Want To See?

I indicated when I started writing that this was supposed to be writing about food experiments.  But I haven't done any experiments yet.  I'm just documenting what I make, and I'm cool with that.

I don't know what to make that is of interest?  Keep doing what I'm doing?  (I mean, I will, but I can also do other things.)  I might be sewing a bit later today, so that will be added.  When I do it, if it ends up being a day other than today.

I eat vegetarian.  I don't have to post solely vegetarian things.  I make meat things for other people.  Now I will post a bunch of pictures of food I made.  Let me know if you want to know more about any of these things, and I can do a blog about them.

Homemade Cheez-its

Spinach and chick pea curry

Honestly, this was a mistake, but a good one.
Couscous with apricots, cherries, scallions, and pine nuts.  I meant to use quinoa.

French onion soup (not veg.)

Whole wheat oatmeal bread

Step one of roasted tomato sauce

Roasted tomato sauce

Peppermint chip ice cream

Brined roast chicken with aromatics

Stuffed mushroom caps

Toffee cashew brittle

Tofu scramble

What say you, readers?  Anything strike your fancies?

Herbed Flat Bread

Baking isn't my favorite thing to do.  That's part of why this flat bread is awesome.  No baking!

Now, you can make this recipe, and bake the dough into a nice herbed regular bread.  The first time I came across the recipe was after someone had done just that.  There's yeast and sugar, so it will rise, and maybe I'll try that sometime, but I needed something to eat with my hummus!

This isn't much of an adaptation at all.  I followed this recipe...oh, almost exactly.  Next time, I'll sub honey for the sugar and see what that does to the taste, and update you.

This is Homemade Flat Bread from The Food Network's site.

Ingredients
2¼ teaspoon active dry yeast
½ teaspoon sugar
1 C all purpose flour (OR 1¾ C of all purpose flour.  I like using whole wheat whenever possible.)
¾ C whole wheat flour (plus a bit for dusting) 
1 tsp sea salt (or other coarse salt)
1 Tbsp fresh thyme (or 1 tsp dried thyme)
approx ¾ C warm water (may need more, may need less)
1 tsp olive oil

This is easy to do in a food processor, which is what I used.  I probably would have used my stand mixer, but it was busy doing other things (apple cider muffins).

In your food processor (or bowl, whatevs), combine yeast, sugar, flour salt, and thyme and pulse (or stir!) to combine.  While processing or stirring, slowly add water until a firm dough forms.  There shouldn't be any dry flour left, and the dough shouldn't be thin or crumbly.  A ball will start to form.

Take your dough ball, and knead it a few times on a lightly floured surface to make sure it's smooth and everything is combined.  I only gave it about five of six pushes with the heel of my hand.  You don't want to overwork dough!

Lightly coat a bowl with oil, and place the dough in it to rise.  Cover with a damp towel for about an hour.  The dough should double in size.

Before

After

Once the rising has happened, punch the dough down, move it to your lightly floured surface, and gently knead it into a ball again.

You'll want to divide this into about twenty pieces, around the size of golf balls.  I worked on ten at a time.

Roll each ball out into a disc that's five or six inches in diameter.  That rolling pin is not the tool for the job.  I ended up using a jar to do this.

Maybe a bit more flour-y than I'd planned, but still good to go.  

Now, place these on an un-oiled skillet and cook on medium high heat for two to three minutes each side.  I used an electric griddle at 350 degrees.

It indeed made twenty little flat breads, which have been disappearing quickly, topped with hummus.

I plan to make and freeze more dough this week, so when I want some flat bread, I can take the dough out of the freezer before work in the morning, and punch it down and cook it when I'm done with work.

Easy Peasy Hummus

Sometimes, I just like things to be simple.

This hummus recipe is simple, and it leaves a lot of room for personal taste.  I love garlicky hummus, and with a kick of lemon juice?  SO good.  This simple hummus does not bother with tahini, oh no.  Tahini is expensive, and I don't know that I'd use it enough to justify the cost.

How easy is this recipe?  So easy.

My ingredients:

Can of chick peas (YES!  Canned.  I'm not joking around about the "simple" thing.)
Clove of garlic, minced (I just pressed it through my garlic press)
Scant ½ teaspoon ground cumin
A few cranks of fresh ground pepper
Pinch of kosher salt
Juice of one lemon

You see, this is all very scientific and precise.

I make this with an immersion blender.  You can use a blender, a food processor, or (my mother's preferred method!) a potato masher.  If you go the masher route, my mother says the key is to use a tall, cylindrical container, like the tall quart Ziploc containers.

Drain and rinse chick peas and dump into your container o' mixing.  Add ingredients.

Mash that business up.

Phase three: Hummus!

It really is as simple as that.  I haven't added things like roasted red pepper yet, but the next time I roast peppers, I plan to!

Gnocchi, Take One

Gnocchi almost makes me believe in god.  Pasta made from potatoes?  Sometimes with cheese?  Sign me up.

Trader Joe's used to carry this frozen sweet potato gnocchi with sage that was so tasty and was great for a quick dinner in the winter, or just straight up lazy comfort food.  My roommate has brought me the news that she's not been able to get it her last few trips.

Today, I thought I'd have a go at making potato candy.  I mashed three fist-sized potatoes, because reading recipes first is for losers.  Oh, I only needed two tablespoons of potatoes?  AND SIX CUPS OF SUGAR?  WTF.

So I used The Google to find a recipe for something to do with mashed potatoes.  I think I was hoping to find a pancake of some sort, but then the words "gnocchi," "brown butter," and "sage" jumped out at me.  OH OKAY, MARTHA STEWART.

As this was unplanned, I had no fresh sage, but I didn't even care, because my idea was going to be awesome.  My adaptation of Martha Stewart's recipe as follows:

2+ cups mashed potatoes
1 egg yolk
1 tsp lemon zest (I don't think the zest added much to this, but that could be because I was too busy making out with sage.)
3 T extra virgin olive oil
1¼ cups flour (plus some to dust your surface)
1 T salt
3 T butter
Black pepper to taste
2 tsp ground sage

While preparing the next step, set a large saucepan full of water on high heat and bring it to a boil.

In a large bowl (or stand mixer), combine the potatoes, egg, zest, olive oil, flour, a teaspoon of salt, and a teaspoon of sage.  Mix until dough forms.

[Pretend there's a picture of my ingredients in a bowl here, LOL forgot to put my memory card in.]

I will paste Ms. Stewart's directions for this next step below, but hell if I know what she's saying:

On a lightly floured work surface, roll 1/4 of the dough into a 3/4-inch-diameter log. Cut the log into 3/4-inch-long pieces. Pick up one piece of dough, and press onto the back of a fork with your thumb. Still using your thumb, roll dough off fork, forming a "C" shape; the indentations from the tines should be visible. Place the gnocchi on the prepared baking sheet. Repeat process with the remaining pieces of dough, arranging finished gnocchi in a single layer. Repeat with the remaining 3 portions of dough.

What?  That didn't even have a picture with it, so I really don't know what she was describing.  At any rate, I separated half the dough and set it aside to freeze (after I was done cooking, I made them into the proper shape before putting them in the freezer, layered between wax paper).  I took bits of dough and tried to roll them into snakes to cut up and press fork tines into the back, but it wasn't like working with pretzel dough.  It's too soft for this to be super effective.

I TRIED, MARTHA!

I cut it into little thumb-sized bits and made sort of half-assed crescents with them, and then gently pushed my fork into them.  This worked best if the tines were dusted with flour.

Post-forking, nothing was a crescent anymore.

Quickly but gently, drop the dumplings into the boiling water.  Allow them to boil until they float to the top.  This could happen in as little as two minutes, but I boiled mine a bit longer, hoping for a bit of a denser texture.

The brown butter.  At SOME point, maybe when you put the water on (which you already did because now it's the future!), put the three tablespoons of butter into a saute pan and heat on medium-low heat.  Slow and steady wins the race.  You don't want it to burn or bubble away.  After a while, it will turn a nice shade of brown and will just smell delicious.  At this point, add the second teaspoon of ground sage.  If you're super fancy, chiffonade some fresh sage into that butter.

When the gnocchi was finished cooking, I drained them, and then tossed them into the butter and turned the heat up a bit, gently sauteeing the dumplings in this magical butter mixture.  Here's an awesome picture of my weird-shaped gnocchi absorbing the flavor of the butter.

SO good.  If you like things a bit sweet, add a pinch of brown sugar to the butter and sage.

I posted this as take one, because the next time I make it, I'll be using YAMS.

You should definitely make this.

No Chicken and Dumplings

I don't eat meat.  I don't have a problem with eating meat, but I don't know enough yet about my local farmers to buy meat from them.  So until I do my research, veg it is!  I like knowing where my food comes from, which was reinforced by the mispackaged beef in Europe last year, and now the new regulations regarding processed chicken.

ANYWHOODLE.

I got this recipe from a veg friend of mine. It's from Project Kale.  You guys, this is SO GOOD, and add whatever veggies you want!  I didn't have any potatoes the first time I made it, but it was thick and starchy enough without them.  I don't think I'll add potatoes in the future, either.

This was from round 1, so pretend there are more veggies

Ingredients:
Ingredients in paretheses I did not use.  Asterisks indicate my additions.

1 quart vegetable broth or stock.  (Chicken would be fine, beef maybe not quite as tasty considering the sage added.)
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 stalk celery, finely chopped
2 carrots, finely chopped (surprise!)
(2-3 russet potatoes, peeled and diced)
*quarter of a zucchini, skin on, cut into chunks.  1cm cubes?
1 C frozen peas
* 1 C green beans, about 1 inch pieces.
* 1/2 C coarsly chopped mushrooms
* generous handful of spinach
1 bay leaf
2+ tsp poultry seasoning (nom nom sage!)
salt and pepper
2 T flour

For the dumplings:
21/4 C Bisquick
2/3 C water
Big handful of fresh parsley, chopped.

In a stock pot, heat up about a quarter cup of broth and the bay leaf.  Add the onion and celery (with a dash of salt!), and allow them to simmer (covered) for about a minute before adding the carrot.  Cover and simmer for another minute or two.  This would be when you'd want to add the potatoes.  Add any other veggie that won't fall apart at this time: zucchini, peas, green beans.  Simmer for about five minutes from when you added your first veg.  Add mushrooms, and give it all another minute.  If your broth is evaporating too quickly, add a bit more.  Keeping the pot covered will avoid that, and will help your veg become tender pretty quickly.

Simmered veggies, coated with flour

Add your two tablespoons of flour, and stir so as many veggies are coated as possible.  Add two teaspoons full of poultry seasoning, and then add the remainder of the broth to your pot.  Cover, and bring to a boil.

While the broth is heating up, make your dumplings: add your chopped parsley and a few dashes of poultry seasoning to the Bisquick, and mix it with your hands.  Add the water, and separate into walnut-sized pieces.

Once the veg and broth are boiling, drop the dough balls into the water and cover the pot.  Allow the dumplings to steam for ten minutes, add spinach, and cook 30 second to a minute more.

The broth should now be stew-like, and also delicious.


The last time I made this,  I did not have dumplings...I omitted the Bisquick, water, and parsley, and just boiled the broth, adding spinach right before I removed it from heat.  I may have added a bit more flour to thicken things up.  I froze half of what I made, and it freezes well!