Friends-giving Vegetable

I confess I've been neglecting my Facebook account. So Friends-giving kinda snuck up on me this year. During an evening visit with Pippie, I mentally listed the few ingredients we had left at the house and tried to come up with something respectable to bring as my dish. Hopefully for the friends sake, the cauliflower will turn out well.

Olive and Garlic Cauliflower

• 2 cauliflowers
• 6-12 chopped cloves of garlic
• 1/2 cup olive oil (or butter) & more for roasting
• 1/2 cup roughly chopped kalamata olives
• Salt & Pepper

1. Turn your oven on to 450 degrees. Don't wait for it to finish preheating.
2. Break the cauliflower heads into bite-sized florets. 
3. Toss the cauliflower with salt, pepper, and some oil (or bacon fat).
4. Spread 1/3 of the cauliflower onto a baking sheet and pop that baking sheet in the oven.
5. While the first batch of cauliflower cooks, mix the olive, 1/2 cup oil (or butter), and chopped garlic in a microwaveable dish (like a coffee mug). Microwave the oil mixture for 15-60 seconds depending on the power of your microwave. You want the garlic lightly cooked not golden or crunchy.
6. Check on the cauliflower after 10 minutes. You want the spots touching the pan to be medium to dark brown. If it's not done yet, check every 5 minutes.
7. Spread 1/2 of the remaining cauliflower onto a baking sheet and pop that baking sheet in the oven. Check on the cauliflower after 10 minutes. If it's not done yet, check every 5 minutes.
8. Spread the remaining cauliflower onto a baking sheet and pop that baking sheet in the oven. Check on the cauliflower after 10 minutes. If it's not done yet, check every 5 minutes.
9. Once all the cauliflower is cooked, stir the garlic oil into the cauliflower and serve.

Puttanesca Sauce

This dish has an unfortunately colorful past history but it's a delicious sauce nonetheless. It can easily be made while you wait for pasta water to boil.

Puttanesca Sauce
1-2 Tbs Olive Oil
3 Garlic, minced
1/2 tsp Red pepper flakes
6 anchovies, chopped or 1 can of tuna
1/2-1 cup Black or Kalamata olives
1/2 tsp Oregano, dried or 1/2 Tbs Oregano, fresh
28oz can Crushed Tomatoes
2 Tbs Capers

Saute garlic and red pepper flakes in oil for about 1 minute. Stir in anchovies, olives, and oregano and cook for 2-3 minutes. Add tomatoes and simmer until your pasta is done boiling. Stir in capers and serve.

Beer Cheese Soup

Variations of potato soup are staples in our house. They're cheap and tend to be foolproof.

Beer Cheese Soup

1-2 Tbs Oil/Butter

1 Onion, chopped

3 Garlic, minced

1 Carrot, chopped

1 Celery rib, chopped

1/4 cup Flour

1lb+ Potato, cubed

6 cups Chicken broth

2 12-oz Beers

1/2 cup Cream/Half and half/Sour Cream

1 Tbs Brown/German/Creole Mustard

1/2 tsp Salt

1/2 tsp Hot sauce

1/2 tsp Worcestershire sauce

2 cups Cheddar cheese, grated

Heat oil in a 4 qt. saucepan. Stir in onions, garlic, carrot, and celery. Saute until tender. Stir in flour and cook for a few minutes. Stir in potatoes, broth and beer. Boil until potatoes are tender. Remove from fire and add remaining ingredients. Puree 3/4 of the soup with a blender or food processor.

Waffle Friday

Mom hosts "Waffle Friday" every Friday morning. David and I have been regular attenders for the past month. I've been happy to mooch some waffles, coffee, and attempt to help solve the crossword puzzle. But recently David ran out of frozen waffles at home. He likes to use them as teething rings. I wanted to make some 100% whole grain waffles for David's new stock of teething waffles. I found this recipe on King Arthur's site. It was a bit stout compared to the white waffles we'd been eating. I altered it some and we ended up with a lightweight 100% whole grain waffle.


Whole Wheat-Oat Waffles (Makes 3.5 - 7" waffles)
1 cup White Whole Wheat or Whole Wheat Pastry Flour
1/2 cup Oat Flour*
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1.5 cups milk
1 egg
1/3 cup oil or butter**


Combine your dry ingredients then add the wet ingredients. Stir until just combined. Some pea sized lumps are acceptable. Cook in your waffle maker.


*I use Happy Herbivore's trick of zapping rolled oats in the food processor or blender to get oat "flour."
**I imagine you could sub in 1/2 a mashed banana for a lower fat waffle.

ABin5

I'm not eating bread - at least right now anyway. Husband and I are about halfway into the yearly Awakening fast. Sadly the fast doesn't include bread. But I found this bread recipe that I wanted to make right now! So  I managed to bully mom and Dan into being test subjects. After two loaves, they don't appear to regret it.

Yesterday, Mom and I made the Artisan Bread in Five Minutes recipe. It's a bread recipe that has you make four loaves of bread that you bake when desired over the next two weeks. The dough stays in your refrigerator until you're ready to whack off a chunk and bake it. The recipe has easy and clear instructions except when it came to the shaping and scoring step. Luckily, shaping and scoring bread have tons of tutorials on the web. 

On day 2, I just shaped into a baguette straight out of the fridge. You don't have to worry too much about manhandling this dough it's pretty forgiving.

Scoring is a bit of an art that I haven't mastered yet. I usually end up deflating the dough rather than allowing it to expand further but I'll get it one day! Before I attempted to score the dough, I sprayed it with some oil to make it easier to score. The oil also makes sure the crust doesn't get too hard.

The finished loaf has a nice golden brown color which is partially due to mom's super awesome steam oven. The broiler pan steaming method works well enough but it's not the same as having a semi-professional appliance. The bread was really delicious as well as being easy to make and bake. The same authors have a ~70% whole wheat dough that I'm going to try next time.

You don't have to do all that shaping and scoring business if that doesn't appeal to you. You can just form it into a rough cylinder and put it into a greased loaf pan. I'm going to bring some dough to Vi's one day to try baking it in her bread maker.