You know,
EVERY WEEK, The Elf says to hers-elf—I’m gonna write on this little blog all
week and NOT be found on Sunday without a word yet entered. And EVERY WEEK, we
find that we have NOT managed to do that. BUT—that doesn’t mean we’ve been slothful
in the kitchen. Far from it! This week was full of new adventures in Elfin
Cookery and some old favorites that are tried and true. So here we go!
First up, we
concocted a tofu scramble that really cleaned out the refrigerator. Using
sliced fresh jalapeños, green cauliflower, fresh zucchini and squash from a
neighbor’s garden, ‘shrooms, red onion, slices green olives, and some great
very firm organic tofu, we ate off this for several days.
Every
Wednesday is baking day for The Elf as we are preparing for a big fundraiser
for our favorite NO-KILL Animal Shelter here in the Jackson Area…and we mean
the Animal Rescue Fund of Mississippi (ARF/MS). We are baking 3” cookies to
sell and donate to ARF/MS. Hopefully, we will sell out and raise some good
dough (pun intended!). Here we have our favorites of Oatmeal Chocolate Chip
followed by Oatmeal Walnut Raisin. For the next couple of Wednesdays, we will
go to a new combo of Oatmeal CherryCraisin and Coconut.
And, another
recipe we make at least once a week at the Elf’s House is Boiled Peanut
Hummus!! We LOVE the stuff. Just made up a new batch yesterday…it would be the
perfect food if you didn’t have to peel the peanuts!!
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And our
BIGGEST adventure of the week was our first attempt at Rhea Parson’s (The ‘V’
Word) ‘V’ Meat…Gluten-free plant based meat alternative. http://thevword.net/2013/12/its-here-introducing-v-meat-the-v-words-gluten-free-answer-to-seitan.html
Since most
of the plant-based meats such as Seitan use a product called Vital Wheat
Gluten, folks who are gluten sensitive just miss out. Prepared properly, seitan
is a superb plant-based meat. The Gentle Chef uses it quite a bit in his
recipes for Shredded Chikun and the Bacun that we seem to make every week.
Well, first of
all, Rhea was at the ready via e-mail to assist with any questions (and we did
have some) so The Elf wishes to thank her for the support and guidance.
Since the
recipe calls for quite a number of ingredients, we wanted to make damn sure
that we had them all before undertaking this recipe. And wouldn’t you know, two
ingredients we did not have that we THOUGHT we did were ARROWROOT and SOY FLOUR!
Dang it. But, thanks to a trip to Rainbow Co-op, we got them without difficulty.
We divided the ingredients up into the dry, which were Amaranth Flour, Soy
Flour, Pea Protein (I had NEVER even HEARD of PEA PROTEIN!!), freshly ground
black pepper and guar gum.
The next batch
of ingredients we named ‘seasonings’:
nutritional yeast, ground flaxseed, kosher salt, paprika (whew! Thank goodness
for the paprika discussion last week), onion powder, garlic powder (we had
garlic granules..no big), dried oregano, ground cumin, and ground coriander.
That little plastic cup at the top of the onion powder is the majority of the
seasoning ingredients measured out.
The wet
ingredients consisted of ‘beef’ broth (we used vegetable bouillon flavored with
a couple of drops of Gravy Master and Liquid Smoke), tomato paste, vegetable
oil (we used Grapeseed oil), and coconut aminos. The rolled oats were included
with the wet ingredients because they were ‘cooked’ in some of the beef broth
early on.
All
of this eventually winds up as a dough of sorts and we’ll be completely honest,
when we first combined things to form this dough, we thought we’d done
something wrong. BUT! After kneading it for a bit, damn if it didn’t come
together as a really nice dough.
We divvied it
up into cutlets and steamed for about 20 minutes.
.
And following that, we were quite sure we had screwed up again…because the end
result just did not have the consistency we expected—great flavor though! So we
contacted Rhea, sent her some pics—only to have her calm our fears by saying
that it looked pretty good for a first elf-fort. Here’s a shot of ‘V’ Meat with
some sautéed onions.
So, we will definitely
try this recipe again and maybe try shaping the dough into sausages and
steaming them a bit longer.
Trying out new
things is a treat and we have the utmost respect for those folks who put in the
time, energy, expense, elbow grease, thought and creativity to come up with
recipes that folks like The Elf can follow. We have one in the works RIGHT NOW
that we hope to share with you next week…IF it turns out like the recipe
indicates. Keep your fingers crossed.
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ELFERY
SPICERY!!
Last week we
introduced a new feature to our little blog called ELFERT SPICERY and this week we are taking a look at a spice that
is used a LOT in vegetarian/vegan cooking—and this is TURMERIC.
Using
Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turmeric we found out a lot about this very popular spice. Turmeric
grows wild in the forests of South and Southeast Asia. It is one of the key
ingredients in many Asian dishes. Indian traditional medicine, called Siddha,
has recommended turmeric for medicine. Its use as a coloring agent is not of
primary value in South Asian cuisine.
Turmeric is
mostly used in savory dishes, but is used in some sweet dishes. In recipes
outside South Asia, turmeric is sometimes used as an agent to impart a rich,
custard-like yellow color. It is used in canned beverages, baked products,
dairy products, ice cream, yogurt, yellow cakes, orange juice, biscuits,
popcorn color, cereals, sauces, gelatins, etc. It is a significant ingredient
in most commercial curry powders.
Most turmeric
is used in the form of rhizome powder; in some regions, turmeric leaves are
used to wrap and cook food. Turmeric leaves are mainly used in this way in
areas where turmeric is grown locally, since the leaves used are freshly
picked. Turmeric leaves impart a distinctive flavor.
Although
typically used in its dried, powdered form, turmeric is also used fresh, like
ginger. It has numerous uses in Far Eastern recipes, such as pickle that
contains large chunks of soft turmeric, made from fresh turmeric. From the site, we get a good description of the differences between fresh and
dried/powdered turmeric.http://www.thekitchn.com/whats-the-difference-between-fresh-and-dried-turmeric-ingredient-intelligence-203090
Fresh Turmeric
Fresh turmeric
rhizomes (often called roots) look similar to ginger, a close relative. Like
ginger, fresh rhizomes have a livelier flavor than dried. Turmeric's bright
orange flesh is earthy, peppery, and slightly bitter. Depending on how tender
or mature it is, you may want to scrape off the peel before using it. Like
ginger, turmeric may be cut into coins, matchsticks, or cubes; grated with a
microplane or cheese grater; and juiced or thrown into smoothies.
Fresh turmeric
may be found in the produce section of well-stocked grocery stores, health food
stores, and Asian and Indian grocery stores. Choose firm rhizomes and avoid
soft, dried, or shriveled ones. Store fresh turmeric in the refrigerator in a
plastic bag or airtight container for a week or two, or freeze it for several
months.
Dried Turmeric
Dried turmeric
is made by peeling, boiling, and drying the rhizomes, which are then sold whole
or ground. Turmeric loses some of its essential oils and pungency in the drying
process but it can still provide warmth and color. For the best flavor use
whole fingers and grind them as needed using a microplane or spice grinder.
When
purchasing dried turmeric look to ethnic and specialty spice shops that often
have fresher stock and faster turnover than regular grocery stores. Aroma is
often a better indicator of quality than color, which can vary from yellow to
orange. Store dried turmeric in an airtight container in a cool, dark place for
up to a year.
It was
interesting to find out (via Wikipedia) that the pronunciation of turmeric
typically treats the first ‘r’ as silent, making is sound like ‘too-mer-ic’.
That’s interesting because it was only recently that The Elf even NOTICED that
first ‘r’ and ALWAYS thought it was spelled TUMERIC!!
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So, we will
once again endeavor to have some work done on this blog during the week but who
knows!! We do know that we are pretty sick of the heat and have August yet to
go! We hope you will stay cool and relish in the garden produce that is such a
bounty this time of year. Gosh, that makes The Elf want some watermelon! Til
next week, y’all breathe deep, eat plants, laugh a lot and love life.
The Elf
